LAUNCH REPORT:

SEAT Leon FR (2011) review

by David Finlay (15 September 2011)

Although the León is one of SEAT's oldest models, and far from its best, it remains the company's second most popular car among UK buyers. A lot of its success is due to the popularity of the sporty FR versions, which are one step below the faster and more expensive Cupra R and account for over 20% of sales.

Understandably, SEAT regards this as a Good Thing and is keen to push it along. It's doing so in two ways, one of which is to extend the appeal to buyers who might like the style of the FR but have issues with pricing or running costs by introducing a pair of new, less powerful engines, namely a 123bhp 1.4 TSI petrol and a 138bhp 2.0 TDI diesel.

The 208bhp 2.0 TSI petrol and 168bhp 2.0 TDI diesel engines are still available, but if you want one of those you will no longer, strictly speaking, be buying an FR but a new confection called the FR+. Apart from the extra power, FR+s (there must be a more elegant way of describing them than that) differ from FRs in that they have 225/40 tyres on 18" wheels rather than 225/45s on 17s, and also come with extra equipment in the form of bi-xenon headlights, a Bluetooth communications pack, touchscreen satellite navigation, a DAB radio tuner, an SD card slot, Bluetooth audio streaming and front parking sensors.

The petrol and diesel FRs cost £18,205 and £20,245, while the FR+s are £21,600 and £21,440 in the same order, making them significantly cheaper than the very closely related Volkswagen Golf GTD and GTI. DSG semi-automatic transmission is available as an option on all versions except the 1.4 TSI FR, which is manual only.

Both FR+ models are splendidly quick, though I have a fondness for the 138bhp diesel FR. It may not have a spectacular-looking power output, but it's strong enough at low revs to be able to accelerate briskly any time you ask it to. On the other hand, the pricing doesn't make much sense. SEAT makes much of the fact that the FR+ offers £2465 worth of extra equipment for just £1070, but neither of these figures seems to justify the fact that the diesel FR is within £1195 of the much more powerful FR+.

Although it's not as economical as either of the diesels, the 1.4 TSI looks promising simply because it's the cheapest of the four by such a large margin. But its appeal is definitely based on its style; the performance just doesn't seem adequate for a car whose name includes the intials of the words "Formula Racing".

During the media launch I was tempted to say something similar about all the cars on the basis of their road behaviour. Having devoted a large proportion of my life to criticising SEAT for the appalling ride quality of its sportier models, I'm astonished to be able to say that all four members of the FR family ride exceptionally well, even the ones with the 40-section tyres. I don't know how this has happened, but I'm not going to complain about it.

The flipside is that none of them feel particularly racy. There's no special reason why they should, but . . . oh, I don't know, it's probably that Formula Racing thing again. They do handle well, but I was expecting something a bit more exciting.

SEAT offered journalists the chance to drive the FR+ models round the Prestwold test track, and having developed the aforementioned opinion after several miles on the road I was beginning to wonder if there was any point to it. But you don't say "no" to an offer of track driving - well, I don't - so I went out for a few laps anyway, and found that the 211bhp petrol car did this:

Well, that was a lot more fun than I'd thought it was going to be. The car was very chuckable, as we used to call it, and felt as if it could be hauled back into line almost regardless of how far you took it into the loony zone. Nothing that had happened on the public road had led me to expect this, and it made me realise that the FR+ TSI would work far better as a trackday car than I first thought.

The same applies to the TDI, though it behaves completely differently. The lack of outright power is very obvious, but the way the power is spread across the rev range largely makes up for that. On the exit of the fast left-hander it was doing an indicated 100mph compared with 105mph for the TSI, a difference which would be disastrous in an actual race but is well worth trading in for the TDI's superior fuel economy if you're just out to have fun in your road car.

It might also be considered a tribute to the car that 50mph limit signs appeared at the chicane shown at the end of the video relatively late in the day. I'm not sure how quickly the León had been going through it before that, but it can't have been much less than 70mph. From the inside it all felt very easy and controlled, though I can see how anyone in the nearby workshops might have felt it was better to be safe than sorry.