Cupra, the Spanish carmaker that was once a performance arm of Seat, will expand its sales reach to the Australian market in the coming months. However, new information suggests that they might also be planning a US release.
Speaking to Drive during a visit to Australia, Cupra CEO Wayne Griffiths said: “There are markets outside of Australia that we are developing. We are strong in South America, particularly in Mexico, but also in Colombia and Chile. On top of that, obviously if you want to become a global brand, our reason for coming to Australia is to show that we can become a global brand. Then, obviously, you have to look at markets like North America, but that would only be in a second phase. At the moment no decision is being made about North America, but we are starting to analyze (the market)”.
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The conversation then turned to whether Cupra had plans to launch its cars in China given the potential of its market. “Not at the moment,” Griffiths said. “The Volkswagen Group has a fairly dominant share (in China) among its existing brands. They have a very strong position with Audi, Volkswagen and Skoda. So, to go to China? Not right now. We have more priority for the United States.”
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In theory, this proposal would not be too far out of the question. Since Cupra is part of the Volkswagen Group, many of its cars share platforms with VW models that already exist in the United States. For example, the Cupra Leon and Formentor are based on VW Golf’s MQB Evo platform, and the Ateca shares Taos’ MQB A1 underpinnings.
Also, Seat already sells versions of these vehicles in a left-hand drive configuration, so that potential issue is out of the way. For the most part, beyond the inherent difficulty of launching a new brand in a tough market, it seems the most difficult challenge in bringing these cars to America would be homologating them to US emissions and safety standards.
