Fifth Gear presenter Tiff Needell put the Leon Cupra R to the test in last week’s episode when he pitted the 265PS monster against the equally powerful Golf R.
“The wild Leon Cupra R has a near-identical engine to the Golf, but is £5,000 cheaper and 70 kilos lighter,” says Needell.
“Straightaway [the Cupra R] feels racier than the Golf R,” says Needell while he’s revving the hot hatch up for a super-fast lap.
But disaster strikes when he accidentally activates the voice-controlled Bluetooth function, prompting the telephone system to ‘talk’ to him throughout his flying lap.
The “chatty” Leon acquits itself well during the hot lap, but is 0.8 seconds slower than the 4WD Golf R, which completes the lap in just 1 minute 22.6 seconds.
Despite clocking a slower lap than its Volkswagen sibling, Needell says that “the £5,000 cheaper Leon remains a very talented – if chatty – little sister. Thank goodness you can turn the voice control off!”
Click the ‘play’ button to watch the full clip.
