Cupra's pocket rocket: the new Leon revealed

► A new Cupra Leon has arrived
► A PHEV, a 328bhp one and an estate
► Fresh looks and interior

This is the new hot hatch from SEAT’s racier division – say hello to the 2024 Cupra Leon. It’s been tweaked and tucked with a facelift for this year, and quite a substantial one at that. Cupra is using the car and its bigger offering, the Formentor, to establish the brand as champions of progressive and intrepid design over the next few years, with ambitions to be in the US by the end of this decade.

Just as before, the 2024 Cupra Leon will be available either as a hot hatch or a lukewarm estate, though now bristling with fresh engineering and design features to modernise it for the future.

It’s received a new nose to complement an overall revised front end, along with redesigned taillights and a revisited cabin to match. There are also new engines available from the wider Volkswagen Group family, plus a few bits of trick engineering like a torque splitter to up its sportier side.

Want to learn more? Read on to find out everything you need to know about the 2024 Cupra Leon.

For the Leon’s redesign, Cupra said it wanted to go bold with a style that ‘not all will like but some will love’. We’ll leave judgement of it up to you, but what we can see is a new shark-nose-like front end with large vertical deflectors flanking each side of a big mesh grille. The overall sportier mien is amplified by the angularity of the sunken LED headlights, within which are three additional LED triangles. Straight lines only here.

Around the back of the car, a more muscular rear bumper complete with quad copper-style exhausts and a big diffuser arguably establishes a more aggressive stance, though the eyes are drawn first to the new rear-lighting signature. A light bar is still present to connect the two taillights, as was the case with the outgoing version, though it’s now finished with an illuminated Cupra badge front and centre. Oh, and don’t forget the faux carbon spoiler.

Yep, that’s been given a makeover, too. The updated Leon will no doubt have an air of familiarity to those well-versed in the interior designs of VW group cars. Its centre console has been sharpened and streamlined