SOTW: SEAT Ibiza Cupra Sport

A spot of cheeky Spanish hot hatch action from Shed this week

The SEAT name might be long gone from international rallying, but back in the late 90s VW's Spanish arm was king of the stages. In the front-wheel drive Kit Car class, at least.

In fact, la Sociedad Espanola de Automoviles de Turismo actually took the World Rally Championship for front-drive 2.0-litre cars in 1996, 97 and 98 with their Ibiza Kit Car, whose greeny hue was echoed by the 'Kiwi Yellow' of today's SOTW.

For those few years, then, the fastest roadgoing Ibizas had quite a bit of performance car kudos since Kit Car regulations, although they allowed for aero addenda, wheelarch extensions and wider tracks, were essentially a production-based formula. By that logic, you can almost consider this Seat Ibiza Cupra Sport 16v to be a poor man's STi Impreza. Almost.

But there's more than a moderately tenuous motorsport connection and an oh-so-90s paint job to this diminutive hot hatch.

The combination of the same VW group A03 platform as the Mk3 VW Polo, and the 2.0-litre 150hp engine from the Mk3 Golf GTI 16v made for pretty lively performance. It wasn't generally considered to be the most polished of dynamic performers, but was blessed with a certain tenacity of spirit, willingly cocking an inside rear wheel like a dog marking its territory if you chuck it enthusiastically at a corner.

This particular car has been mildly tweaked, with uprated suspension and a stainless-steel cat back exhaust but, as modifications go, these are definitely at the more appropriate end of the spectrum. It's also still visually standard, so nobody is likely to accuse you of anything using the words 'Max' and 'Power'.

Apart from a dodgy rear bumper, this looks like a pretty clean car, too, with plenty of service history, and plenty of recent work on it. Not bad for £999. And you can even pretend to be Harri Rovanpera... though perhaps not driving like this...

Advert is reproduced below

Seat Ibiza Cupra Sport 16v (£999)
We have owned the car for the last 6 years. We spent a long time looking for the right car. Very well looked after.
It is a proper cupra sport.
Rare kiwi yellow
Half leather seats
117700 miles
12 month mot
6 months tax

good tyres all round
stainless cat back exhaust
hid headlights (white not blue.)
recent disks and pads all round
new rear wheel bearings
bilstein sport front dampers
gaz adjustable rear dampers
every thing else standard
cam belt and tensioner done at 98k
12disc multichanger
lots of history
original owners manual
ultra reliable
bad bits.
small dent on rear d/s rear arch
lacquer on rear bumper has been redone, colour is uneven. Shown in pics.
New car forces sale.

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Trusty Steed

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