SPY PICS: A hotter piece of Ibiza

The VW Golf-size Seat Ibiza, along with the Toledo and Cordoba models, was once sold in Australia but was discontinued nine years ago when people decided they'd rather buy Volkswagens anyway. In a way doing what Skoda is doing today, the VW-owned brand was native to a country other than Germany (Spain in this case, the Czech Republic in Skoda's case) and the rationale of slightly underselling VW on prices never really paid off.

Seat is still a viable entity in other parts of the globe though and a brand-new Ibiza is its latest drawcard.

The master spy photographers at Carparazzi caught these images of a new version in action, heavily draped in disguise blankets but revealing clues to its real identity as a hot FR version that is to sit in the range where the GTI belongs in the VW hierarchy. Clues can be found by checking out the big wheels, red brake callipers and twin-pipe exhaust.

The Ibiza FR is expected to tote a four cylinder turbo engine cranking out something like 134kW to give GTI-like performance. The VW is about the same size as the Ibiza but the GTI has a few kilowatts up its sleeve with a maximum output of 147kW.

-- with Carparazzi