Cupra Leon Estate VZ1 - long-term review

The Cupra Leon Estate isn’t shy about what it wants to be: a practical family wagon on the one hand, a bit of a rascal on the other. 333bhp, a drift mode and a rather flatulent exhaust, plus a 620-litre boot for the boring stuff. Why’s it here? Because this is exactly the crossroads so many of us live at: need space, want fun, can’t be bothered with an SUV.

Before you think that opting for the estate over the hatch puts you at a performance disadvantage, think again. It’s got the same VW Group 2.0 TSI and DSG gearbox at its core, but gets a 33bhp bump, 0-62mph in 4.8s (5.7s in the hatch) and all-wheel drive with a rear-axle torque-splitter. Spicy hardware, family shape, not an SUV. Bingo. List price for the VZ1 with this powertrain is £47,570, but ours lands at £50,160 as tested thanks to three deliberate options.

First, Dark Void premium metallic paint (£995), purple to you and me, because the world doesn’t need another anonymous grey fast estate. Second, the panoramic sunroof (£995): it lifts the cabin on these fast-approaching winter days, plus provides toddler entertainment for rear-facing car seats. Third, a personal indulgence: an 'Immersive by Sennheiser' sound system with ‘AMBEO Concerto’ software (£600). We’ll delve into what that means in a future report, but until then it’s late-night podcasts, bleary-eyed bangers, and the awful concrete bits of the M25 to see how it sounds over road roar.

Pleasingly, everything else is baked in and pretty high-spec: Black Dinamica memory & heated bucket seats with copper stitching (Dinamica being a suede-like microfibre), 19in wheels, Matrix LED headlights, a 12.9in touchscreen with digital cockpit and predictive cruise control. Family-friendly bits worth mentioning: an electric tailgate with virtual pedal, three-zone climate control and roof rails for boxes/bikes. Back-seat life is sorted too: rear air vents, twin USB-C ports, and a 40:20:40 split that drops via levers in the boot, taking capacity to around 1,600 litres – useful for the day job of lugging cameras around.

As for running costs, the official claim is 32.8-34.0mpg. With a 55-litre tank, that hints at roughly 400 miles between fills if you behave yourself, fewer if you don’t. Could we have gone for the 1.5-litre hybrid instead? Don’t be silly. But in the interest of being informative, we’ll keep an eye on how the bigger-engine choice stacks up against that on fuel and day-to-day faff.

First impressions are promising. There’s a genuine spread between comfy commute and performance fun, and Dynamic Chassis Control feels like it offers more than just ‘soft’ and ‘hard’. The screen-heavy cabin needs a little learning, but the steering-wheel shortcuts help. Quick access to driver aids and a Cupra button to flick through drive modes are early favourites. But there’s plenty more to unpick over the next six months.