Photo: SEAT
It hasn't been that long since the latest wonder from Spanish carmaker SEAT was unveiled. The new Leon was detailed in the first month of the year, and was supposed to make its first public outing at the 2020 Geneva Motor Show.
Since that event was canceled on account of the coronavirus pandemic, the Leon didn't get a chance to impress the audience up close, so as a pale substitute SEAT released this week the first images of the car in the wild – sadly, just a few of them, all taken in the mountains around Barcelona.
Sporting a design that is a major departure from what came before and counting as the fourth generation of the nameplate, the latest Leon is the result of a €1.1 billion investment in both the car itself and its production lines, and the safest to date in its family.
“Although the all-new SEAT Leon is an evolution in our design language, it still presents itself as a bolder vehicle than the previous generation, keeping hold of the brand’s DNA and the representative attributes of a Leon,” said in a statement Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos, Director of Design at SEAT.
Built on Volkswagen's MQB Evo platform, the car comes with a wide range of engines, being powered by anything from conventional ICE units, to mild and even plug-in hybrids. Outputs range from 90 to 190 ps for gasoline units and from 115 to 150 hp for diesel.
Electrification comes in the form of the mild-hybrid Leon eTSI with two engines (1.0-liter and 1.5-liter) and a 48V system, and the eHybrid PHEV that brings together a 1.4-liter TSI, an electric motor, and a 13 kWh lithium-ion battery pack.
Since its introduction in the final years of the 1990s, the nameplate has sold 2.2 million units, a number that is not easy to come by for a carmaker the size of the Spanish brand. The new iteration should have been a hit as well, but given the current global circumstances it's unclear how affected the launch of the car later this year will be.
Sporting a design that is a major departure from what came before and counting as the fourth generation of the nameplate, the latest Leon is the result of a €1.1 billion investment in both the car itself and its production lines, and the safest to date in its family.
“Although the all-new SEAT Leon is an evolution in our design language, it still presents itself as a bolder vehicle than the previous generation, keeping hold of the brand’s DNA and the representative attributes of a Leon,” said in a statement Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos, Director of Design at SEAT.
Built on Volkswagen's MQB Evo platform, the car comes with a wide range of engines, being powered by anything from conventional ICE units, to mild and even plug-in hybrids. Outputs range from 90 to 190 ps for gasoline units and from 115 to 150 hp for diesel.
Electrification comes in the form of the mild-hybrid Leon eTSI with two engines (1.0-liter and 1.5-liter) and a 48V system, and the eHybrid PHEV that brings together a 1.4-liter TSI, an electric motor, and a 13 kWh lithium-ion battery pack.
Since its introduction in the final years of the 1990s, the nameplate has sold 2.2 million units, a number that is not easy to come by for a carmaker the size of the Spanish brand. The new iteration should have been a hit as well, but given the current global circumstances it's unclear how affected the launch of the car later this year will be.
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