Price: from £20,655
Top speed: 130mph
0-62: 9.6secs
MPG: 56.5
CO2: 132g/km
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Four years old now, the SEAT Exeo was due for a makeover — or, as they say in the car industry, a “mid-life face-lift”, and here it is. And what a transformation has taken place. Who would even know it was an Exeo any more?
What used to be a plain old bonnet on the original model has been entirely remodelled to represent the head of a parrot, complete with real feathers. Meanwhile the wing mirrors now emit decorative flames in tall, vertical blasts every time you depress the clutch. And the whole of the rear section of the car, from the passenger doors backwards, is made out of a special new kind of pastry.
Oh, all right then: it’s almost exactly the same car — practically unaltered to the naked eye. In fact, only people who studied SEATs to degree level at the University of SEAT and then went on to complete a SEAT doctorate will be in a position to notice the differences. And even they might miss a couple.
There’s a redesigned grille, apparently. (There’s always a redesigned grille. It’s the first thing they do.) There are, it is strongly implied, new alloys for the wheels. (They look, as the alloys on face-lifted cars tend to, like something on which you might usefully juice an orange of a morning.) There are new, more contemporary LED headlamps — though only on some, and not all, of the models — and, for the estate version, some swish silver roof-rails. And there’s one exciting new shade added to the range of available colours for the paintwork. That exciting new shade? Grey. Specifically, “Monsoon Grey”. Or, as we might say in Britain, “rain grey”.
And that’s about it. Now, you could regard this as a massive failure of imagination on SEAT’s part — or, alternatively, you could call it “knowing your customer”. After all, if you’re in the market for a SEAT Exeo, the chances that you are the kind of person who can be tickled by a light smattering of cosmetic mid-cycle fashion upgrades are remote indeed. What will probably be drawing you to the car is the fact that it’s old — and was old even when it was new.
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For the SEAT Exeo is actually a third generation Audi A4 with Audi’s rings taken off it and SEAT’s bathroom tile of a badge stapled to its front and back instead. (Audi and SEAT are both part of the VW Group; when Audi had finished making the old A4, the production plant was simply transported down to Spain so that SEAT could carry on with it.) Thus there is the smooth ride and indestructible build quality of an Audi made tantalizingly available at a decently cut price (down by at least £4,000), provided you aren’t a label snob and don’t mind hanging four years behind the developmental curve. And now, fresh for 2012, the Exeo’s wheels look like kitchen implements and its headlamps glow more fashionably. Like you could care.
During a perfectly happy week of sub-Audi motoring in an Exeo ST, I never quite managed to work out where the model fell in relation to SEAT’s often-noted youthfulness. This is the company that has put out a bunch of perky hatchbacks, adopted Rafa Nadal as a smouldering “brand ambassador” and teased us with those breathless “auto emoción” adverts which have frequently seemed to be positing a close relation between the experience of owning a SEAT and having sex.
The Exeo ST, on the other hand, is about as brightly youthful as a practical estate car with a sensibly designed, if not especially capacious, load-space possibly could be — ie, not at all. You’ll need to be ready to stuff your head deep into the glovebox in order to work out how to plumb in your iPod. And that, I am willing to hazard, will be the best sex you ever have in a SEAT Exeo ST.
Still, an estate car that’s basically one of Audi’s, only cheaper? There’s nothing wrong with that sensation. Different “emocións” for different folks, I guess.