Stop that, it's silly

Newswheel staff :: 11 May 2005 :: Filed under Hatchback, Mini MPV / People carrier, Seat, Seat Leon, Europe & UK

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It's the new Leon. We think

We’re incorrigible petrol heads here on Newswheel. The sort of anally retentive pedants who can spot minute differences in trim from a thousand paces. In Seat, however, we have finally met our match. We can no longer tell its bafflingly homogenous models apart. Don’t get us wrong, we’re all for Seat’s new design philosophy as originally presaged by the Salsa concept of 2000. It’s distinctive, attractive and frankly beats anything the Spanish firm knocked out in the 80s or 90s with a very large stick. But the new Leon has got us thinking you can have too much of a good thing. What’s more, in the context of the current shift in design ethic at Audi, we’re beginning to wonder whether Audi-Seat-Lamborghini design director Walter da Silva is pushing through a fleet on mono-grilled, uni-styled Lambos at this very moment. He certainly has a disturbing fetish for ranges of identi-kit cars with large, gaping grilles. But we digress…

Confused 

This, we believe, is the new Leon mid-range hatchback, set to compete with the Focuses, Astras and 307s of this world. We suspect it will be bowled along by the usual VW-sourced 1.6 and 2.0 FSI petrol, plus 1.9 and 2.0 TDI, powerplant suspects. We have a feeling it also benefits from the new Golf’s independent, multi-link rear axle. But then we can’t quite be sure. It might just be an Altea with a tweaked bumper. Ah, note the recessed rear door handles and the 0.0002 nano-micrometres reduction in height. This, undoubtedly, is the new Leon. Probably.

Those Seat lookalikes in full:

A Leon, yesterday

An Altea, last week

 A Toledo, this afternoon

Are they, perhaps, related? We think we should be told.

Linkage:
Seat