Ibiza For A New Century
by David Finlay (18 Jul 08)

The introduction of the new Ibiza is a spectacularly important event in SEAT's history. The old car was the company's best-selling model in Europe (and about level with the León in the UK), and even as late as this year it has been a reasonable competitor in the supermini sector; but it was recognisably a 1990s design, and in order to remain competitive SEAT had to come up with a replacement.

And here it is. The latest Ibiza is based on a new Volkswagen Group platform, it looks and feels nothing like a 20th-century car, and it has the combined benefits of being both larger and lighter than the outgoing model.

For the moment, it's available only in five-door form and with a choice of three petrol engines. The very different three-door SportCoupé will be along later, and although there will be diesel models they won't be along until 2009 (the delay isn't a big problem since petrol is still the fuel of choice among supermini buyers, who tend not to rack up enormous mileages). One of the diesels will power a new Ibiza Ecomotive, which like the current one will have CO2 emissions of less than 100g/km.

This Ibiza is the first SEAT to be designed by Luc Donckerwolke, who previously worked at Lamborghini. Doncerkwolke has not entirely abandoned the design language of his predecessor, Walter da Silva, but he has added his own touches, and to my mind there are slightly too many of them. From every angle there seems to be one line more than there needs to be (imagine a chef who keeps adding an unnecessary extra ingredient to all his dishes), but perhaps I haven't fully let go of the previous Ibiza's much simpler styling. Maybe this more complex design will grow on me.

The handover from da Silva should have been an opportunity to create a modern SEAT with a decent amount of glass area at the back, but in fact Donckerwolke has gone in the opposite direction. Behind each rear door there is a tiny triangular window which has clearly been added for styling purposes and not for any practical benefit whatever. The result is that the rear pillars create colossal blind spots which, though sadly not untypical of superminis these days, makes the Ibiza much harder to manoeuvre than it should be. It might be okay for a Lamborghini, but it's not okay here.

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