New models have the advantage, says David Finlay
When Seat first launched the Alhambra people-carrier I couldn't help wondering what the point was. For a start there didn't seem to be a logical progression from the smaller, sportier cars elsewhere in the range to this mammoth machine which could house seven.
And although the Alhambra was simply a renamed version of the Ford Galaxy and Volkswagen Sharan, it was noticeable that Seat was permitted only the diesel and 2-litre engines while the bigger manufacturers got the sexy V6.
The Seat people seem happy enough with sales to suggest that my first worry wasn't valid, and my second has vanished entirely after a drive in the new top-of-the-range Alhambra.
This one, the first ever turbocharged petrol Seat, uses the 150bhp 1.8-litre 20-valve engine which has proved such a delight in various recent VWs and Audis. The strength of this engine has always been its ability to perform at low revs, and that is just as useful in an Alhambra as in a Golf or an A3.
It would be silly to pretend that this behemoth has suddenly become a road-burner simply because it now produces 150bhp. The point is that it gets you from A to B in a relaxed manner, and allows you to overtake slower vehicles without the meticulously planned full-throttle charge required in lesser Alhambras. This may not be important if the car is being used mostly for town or city transport, but on the open road I believe it matters.
There's still no V6 version, and apparently no intention to create one, but that doesn't matter because the 1.8 Turbo is better.
A few Sharan and Galaxy derived niggles remain; you have to remove the rearmost pair of seats if you want to carry anything that could reasonably be called luggage. And the high floor and sloping sides mean that tall passengers in the outer seats of the middle row will not have as comfortable a ride as they might have expected when they saw how big the car was from the outside.
Still, if this is the shape of car you want, the Alhambra Turbo is worth considering. None of the Fords has a comparable engine, and the equivalent VW is nearly #1000 more expensive than the Seat's #20,995, which includes ABS and cruise control among many other standard features.
To contrast with the Alhambra experience I also went for a spin in the 8-valve Ibiza Cupra Sport. Compared with the 16-valver I tried last year this one is marginally lighter, has smaller tyres, develops 35bhp fewer and costs #2600 less.
Despite suspensions settings familiar to anyone who has fallen down a flight of stairs, this Cupra is nothing like as manic as the other one. But at #12,395 it is nearly as much fun and every bit as eye-catching, thanks largely to the Very Very Yellow which has replaced Very Very Green as the standard Cupra colour.
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