I'm Sick Of Explaining What A 'Cupra' Ateca Is To People

A few weeks ago, I complained about the fact that I was forever having to explain the Honda Civic Type R’s aero to people. Comments like “It looks like you drove it through Halfords, mate!” got boring really quickly, and try as I might to educate folk that “it’s all there for a good reason,” they’d already made their minds up, having decided that the wings and swollen arches were stupid and pointless…

So imagine my delight when the next car I used as a daily driver for a couple of weeks - the ‘Cupra’ Ateca - confused people even more.

And all of this boils down to one little feature: the badge. “Is that a Transformers logo on your car?” was a question I heard day in, day out, and for good reason; it looks a lot like the Decepticons logo from Transformers…

Once they’d seen past the Decepticon thing, the next thing people wondered was “what is it?”, which meant me having to explain that Cupra is to Seat what AMG is to Mercedes; so think firmer suspension and more power.

In fact, it’s been given the same 2.0-litre ‘EA888’ turbocharged inline-four as the existing Leon Cupra, which produces 296bhp to all four wheels for a 0-62mph time of 5.2 seconds. Of course, I omit the power and performance figures when explaining the car to normal people because, like the Type R, they already think it’s stupid…

That said, however, it is fast, it gets a tonne of looks and it’s OK to drive. For me, though, the prospect of having that much power in something as tall as the Ateca - not to mention its heavy glass roof which raises its CoG even further - is completely counter-intuitive, so a Golf R estate wins hands down. (It’d also save me lot of wasted time having to explain what it it is).

So let me open the floor to you guys: ‘Cupra’: are you in or out?