Seat Just Accidentally Revealed The Ateca Cupra

A hot, 300bhp+ ‘Cupra’ version of Seat’s Ateca crossover is something that’s been rumoured for a little while now, and today we’ve as good as had confirmation of the car’s existence.

The test mule you see above - which is apparently being driven by Seat’s executive vice-president for R&D Matthias Rabe - was spotted parked up rather conspicuously at a launch event for the facelifted Leon in Barcelona.

That’s right, it was parked up completely undisguised right near a heard of motoring journalists. This seems like such a hilarious lapse in judgement that - donning our tinfoil conspiracy hats - we can’t help but wonder if it was a deliberate attempt to get us gullible car hacks creating a buzz.

Whatever the case, a hot Ateca sounds pretty appealing, particularly since there aren’t really another other hot crossovers for the expected £30,000-35,000 price tag.

It’ll be packing the same 2.0-litre EA888 engine found in the Leon Cupra, which means at least 286bhp on tap, fed to all four wheels rather than just the front pair as in the Leon. Some outlets reckon it’ll actually be more powerful than that, with a figure over 300bhp being predicted.