By accident, Seat fitted our test car with a 7.0-litre pushrod V8. At least, that’s what it sounded like inside when we thumbed the Cupra button on the steering wheel to ramp up the driving modes. 

This car has one of the most absurdly over-dubbed, stereo-tuned engine noises ever contrived. It’s a burbly grumble that’s funny for a few minutes before you tire of it and switch it off. The NASCAR act isn’t particularly well-matched to the actual engine speed, so while the rev counter might say 6,000rpm, the piped-in fury sounds like half that. Odd.

Course, the Leon eHybrid can be eerily quiet. Cupra claims a full charge offers 31 miles of battery-only range, but our test car proposed a more realistic 24 miles. Leaning on the 113bhp e-motor alone, performance is swift enough for pottering about town, but it’s reassuring to know that a quick tug of one of the gearshift paddles – or prodding the mode button opposite the starter on the busy steering wheel – rouses the engine. When they join forces, the eHybrid is fairly rapid, with strong traction and minimal torque-steer shenanigans.

The two power sources swap duties smoothly, but don’t be fooled into thinking the e-motor gives the Leon the instant urgency of a Tesla or a Polestar. Flat-chat, the eHybrid surges forward in a seamless fashion, but it never pins you back in the comfy (if loftily mounted) bucket seat with the gusto of a Honda Civic Type R, and you’ve always got one eye on the battery meter, dreading the moment you’re out of kilowatts and the whole car has to be shifted by its Shetland pony petrol engine.

Happily, the handling hasn’t been forgotten about while the engineers were mucking about under the bonnet. The steering’s quick and sharp, and even though the ride height looks curiously high above the 19-inch rims, the body control isn’t bad considering the sheer mass being dealt with. 

But if you’re looking for the sort of mischief on offer in a Hyundai i30N, forget it. No wheel-cocking, back-sliding antics here. The Leon is grippy enough, but the battery’s girth blunts its agility and it never begs to be let off the leash like the best hot hatches do, egging you on.

It’s actually quite serious and grown-up. Which is fine, but surely that’s VW and Audi’s job? What’s the point in a whole new Cupra brand if it’s lacking its own character?

We suspect the non-hybrid, 2.0-litre Cupra Leons will be the pick of the range, with 296bhp in the hatchback or 306bhp and all-wheel drive in the wannabe-RS6 wagon variant. Especially as the brakes will feel a bit less wooden when you’re standing on them than in the eHybrid, where they have to re-gen to force charge back into the battery. Once it’s dead, this is no hot hatch. It’s just a heavy car with a small engine.