The Current Leon Cupra Will Keep Its Seat Branding
With the Cupra Ateca launched today and a Cupra Ibiza and Cupra Arona being teased, you might wonder where that leaves the hot version of the Leon. Is it due for a re-brand that’ll see its Seat badges binned? Apparently not.
Speaking at the launch of the new Cupra brand and the Cupra Ateca in Spain, Seat’s vice president for sales and marketing Wayne Griffiths confirmed that the Leon Cupra will remain a Seat. Giving it a re-brand would be “cheating” he said, as the intention is for solely Cupra-branded cars to be new vehicles. Simply swapping out the badges on an existing car isn’t exactly what the firm is aiming for.
Until the current Leon dies off, then, we’ll be in a curious position of having Seat-badged Cupras, and, er, Cupra-badged Cupras. Oh, and to confuse matters further, Seat’s Leon TCR customer motorsport car has been renamed, simply as Cupra TCR. The awkardness should end soon at least - with the third-generation Leon debuting in 2012, it’s not long for this world.
It’s very early days for Cupra in this new guise, so it’s hard to tell exactly how it’s going to pan out. But Griffiths is confident, citing Cupra’s ambitions to double sales within the next few years.
What it’ll also mean is we won’t have to wait for Cupra versions of Seats for quite so long. “[Cupra vehicles] could even come out before or just as [the base vehicle is released] if it fits with the brand…we want to be quicker,” Griffiths said.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
My question is, does Seat really want the subdivision, it seems like they’re on a see saw…
Same could be said about Polestar…It seems as if these people want to be off on their own, but still want assistance with their “own” products. Its like Baby Eagles want to fly the second they hatch out of an egg without their mother’s assistance, but they would come back and be like: “we aren’t ready…”
It makes a lot of sense from a corporate perspective. It cuts costs and allows them to establish Cupra into a more specialised, sporty brand as well as to detach that brand from an older brand (with may have a more negative image, or just a different image they don’t want it to be associated with). No wonder this is the current trend with carmakers these days (Renault, Volvo, etc)
Companies often create subsidiaries to change how much taxes etc they pay
Marketing. Always damn marketing ready to mess things up. And they NEVER learn. Not from Datsun, Not from Scion, Not from Acura and many other failed or failing “subbrands” similar to this.
Cough cough
Let’s be honest, the majority of Seat drivers aren’t car enthusiasts. I own a Seat and I’d love to one day own a Cupra, but my mum also owns a 115bhp Ibiza and she loves that. If Cupra can get their own money pot to build fast cars then thats good. It means they arent limited to the other Seat models
Well Cupra, if you are not a part of the VW, STOP using their engines and develop your own… But are they a part of VW Group?
They’re a subsidiary of Seat so they are part of VAG
Another Cupra news
still didnt get the point of making two brands
Less costs, less taxes, more money. Get it now ?
I read this as a seat as in chair not a Seat car thing
ffs
oh damn, now this whole article starts making sense to me
A VW-executive calling rebranding “cheating”.
Priceless.