Spanish performance brand Cupra is today celebrating its first birthday in Australia, where it has delivered close to 3000 vehicles since August 2022 and still has about 600 outstanding customer orders to fill.
A little over half of those deliveries (1586) have taken place this year as the local operation bolsters its inventory and reshuffles its model portfolio, while more than a third of total sales have been electrified variants.
Australia’s love affair with performance vehicles has been well documented for decades now, but Cupra’s local success reinforces that insatiable appetite given the niche brand has outsold established European marques including Alfa Romeo, Citroen, Fiat and Peugeot, not to mention Genesis and Jaguar.
“Australia is responding to our design and performance focussed range, the seamless way we sell it online and the equitable transparency of fixed pricing provided by the agency model,” said Cupra Australia director Ben Wilks.
“Customers tells us that they like the way in which Cupra has made the buying experience easier.”
Cupra recently opened its first Tasmanian showroom, or ‘Garage’ in Cupra-speak, taking its total number of retail outlets out to 10, with more set to be opened in 2024.
Wilks forecast a doubling of new Cupra vehicle deliveries over the next 12 months, which would translate to an annual sales tally of around 6000 cars – close to the ultimate sales goal of 7000 per annum.
Key to that success will be freeing up the supply of existing models as well as the introduction of new ones like the Leon Sportstourer, a vehicle that could end up being a Godsend for fans of the Volkswagen Golf Wagon, which is being retired Down Under in the coming months.
“The obvious Sportstourer variant, given Cupra customer’s preference for the quickest and the best-equipped, is the 228kW all-wheel drive range-topper,” Wilks said.
“There are other versions that suggest themselves. We’ll see.”
To mark its first birthday in Australia, Cupra is offering three years of free servicing on its entire MY23 model range. The first 2024-plated Cupra vehicles are on the way and due to arrive in local showrooms in September.