Cupra Ateca gets a bit of a FACELIFT to keep up withe SEAT’s Ateca

The Cupra Ateca – the Cupra ‘Standalone’ take on the SEAT Ateca – gets a bit of a facelift pretty much mirroring the recent updates to SEAT’s Ateca.

Just as we’ve had to get used to Citroen’s DS models being their own ‘Brand’, and Polestar not being Volvo, SEAT has gone a similar route by taking the performance Cupra badge and turning it in to a standalone brand with its own models.

The trouble is, at least for its first ‘own’ model, Cupra took the SEAT Ateca and gave it the sort of makeover we’d have seen anyway with a Cupra-badged take on the Ateca. Which means, as the SEAT Ateca has just got a facelift, the Cupra Ateca must follow, even though it’s only been in the UK for around eighteen months.

The changes wrought to the Cupra Ateca for 2020 pretty much mirror those SEAT bestowed on their Ateca, with new LED headlights and fogs, titivated bumper and grille, aluminium trim highlights, dynamic indicators, Cupra Puddle lights and new 19″ copper alloys.

Power still comes from the 2.0 litre petrol, but there’s the addition of a new electro-hydraulic multi-disc traction system in front of the rear diff which varies power according to grip and reduces the Ateca’s 0-62mph by 0.3s to 4.9 seconds, with tweaks to steering and throttle enhancing the Ateca’s agility.

Inside there are now Alcantara Sports Seats as standard, a new microsuede steering wheel, complete with ‘Start’ button, 10.25″ digital cockpit and 9.2″ infotainment, as well as new safety stuff like pre-crash and predictive cruise.

The new Cupra Ateca will arrive in the UK later in the year at the same time as SEAT’s Ateca.