Seat Ateca review

The Seat Ateca broke new ground for Seat because the Spanish brand had previously built as many SUVs as it had spaceships. But while Seat was more than fashionably late to the party, fortunately it turned up with an absolute cracker.

Along with its VW Group cousin the Skoda Karoq, the Ateca owes much of its success to solid foundations. How so? Well, it's built on the same platform as the more expensive Volkswagen Tiguan and shares most of that car's important oily bits. That said, the Ateca isn't just a Tiguan with a different badge on the nose and a cheaper price tag, which is both good and bad as we'll explain in this review.

As well as the competing with its mechanically similar family members, the Seat Ateca is up against other big-selling family SUVs, including the Kia Sportage and Nissan Qashqai. It's a designed to be a slightly sportier choice than both of those rivals, though, and there are some surprisingly punchy engines to choose from. In fact, there's even a bonkers 300bhp Cupra version that we've separately here.

But assuming you want something a tad more sensible, click through the next few pages and we'll tell you how the regular Seat Ateca compares with its rivals and which engines and trims we think make most sense. Once you're up to speed, don't forget to check out our New Car Buying pages to find out how much you could save.