I couldn’t get over how extremely posh I looked in my Seat Leon. The suedette seats reminded me of that headline in the Onion when Diana died (“Princess Dies As She Lived: In Incredible Plushness”). The gigantic boot could hold any tat you might throw in it – blow-up mattresses and buckets and spades, travel cots and micro scooters, plastic bags full of things that would end up lost – and still give the appearance of order and tessellation. The headlamps have an elegant, feline shape and the car has a nice balance – weighty and serious at the back, sleek at the front. Driving it, you look as though you have a pension and an Ocado account; you look like someone who sends their forms back on time, and who never lets their athlete’s foot get out of control.
Motorway driving showed off all this smooth confidence; a bit of height has been added to the seats, which give you a rather kingly posture. It’s a little noisier than you’d expect – tyre roar, mainly – but otherwise this felt proper, executive. (I don’t think the next generation will realise that “executive” once referred to a type of job; they’ll think it’s just a word for “comfy car”.)
On shorter journeys, it was a little less rosy. The display in the binnacle constantly nudges you up a gear – 6th, 6th, it urges, just because you’ve touched 31mph on a clear road – and the two-litre turbo diesel engine isn’t up to maintaining any punch at a borderline-too-high gear. The turbo element doesn’t feel as beefy as in cars that look less ambitious, like the Passat. The answer, I guess, is don’t listen to the instruction; but that annoys me, since it was taking up space in my eyeline that could have been used for, I don’t know, a clock.
There’s a lag on the satnav that is frankly disgraceful – a proper, pull-over, drum-your-fingers delay between one screen and the next. As the satnav is the main, immediately noticeable difference between the standard and tech versions (that, and £2,000) it ought to be way better.
Yet that’s a quibble in the grander scheme, where fuel economy (57.6mpg combined) is impressive for a wagon like this. Carbon emissions are 129g/km; again, pretty impressive, if not head-turning. The steering is light, and I won some admirers with my parking on a curved main road – either that or they were just gaping at my discourteous London ways.
In the final analysis: a lot of class but not quite enough welly. Like a pair of those ankle Hunters.
Seat Leon X-perience: in numbers
Price £26,370
Top speed 129mph
Acceleration 0-62mph in 8.7 seconds
Combined fuel consumption 57.6mpg
CO2 emissions 129g/km
Eco rating 7/10
Cool rating 7/10
