Departure of Golf R wagon leaves Leon Sportstourer-sized hole in VGA range

UPDATE: The Golf R wagon will bow out for Volkswagen’s 2024 model year, leaving a small, AWD wagon-sized hole in the Group's Australian range.

Is this the glass slipper for the Leon Sportstourer needed to step into Oz? Cupra hasn’t said in as many words, but Wheels was notified of the Golf R wagon’s demise in the same breath as the Leon wagon’s local evaluation.

There’s also a blank Cupra Australia webpage [↗] for the Leon Sportstourer. It doesn’t have pricing or release information – we’re told holding a domain is customary practice for the marketing team – but it smells like the Leon wagon may be edging closer to our shores.

Should Cupra bring the Leon Sportstourer here? Read all about the likely variants below and vote with your keyboards in the comments section.

Our original story, below, continues unchanged.

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July 6: Cupra 'quietly optimistic' about Leon Sportstourer wagon for Australia

“We’re definitely interested in a fast wagon”, said an enthusiastic Jeff Shafer, head of product and planning at Cupra Australia when asked about the Leon Sportstourer. “It’s kind of dear to my heart.”

Since Cupra’s launch in July 2022, the brand has rapidly expanded its range. The Born electric hot hatch became the latest addition in May, but it’s far from the last. Along with the Tavascan EV due next year/2025, Cupra is keen to expand its local plug-in hybrid and combustion-engine offerings.

With no all-new piston models in the pipeline, it’ll be a case of taking what’s sold in other markets. In this case, the Cupra Leon Sportstourer – a long-roof version of the hatch. Cupra didn’t confirm its arrival, but Shafer is buoyant about a local release.

I think we've got work to do to make the Sportstourer business case stand out, but I'm quietly optimistic that we'll get there

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“We're in discussions with headquarters. It's not locked in, but I'm feeling good about our chances to bring the [Leon Sportstourer] here”, said Shafer, indicating that if the wagon does come down under it’ll only be in top-spec VZe plug-in hybrid and VZx 2.0-litre petrol guises.

The front-drive Leon Sportstourer VZe has the same powertrain as the Formentor VZe, so 180kW/400Nm from the combination of a 1.4-litre four-cylinder and 85kW electric motor for about 59km EV range.

The VZx packs the familiar ‘EA888’ 2.0-litre turbo-petrol engine and all-wheel drive in 228kW/400Nm tune – a significant point of difference from both the Leon VZx hatch and Skoda Octavia RS.

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It may not have the Golf R Wagon's tricky torque-splitting differentials, but the Leon VZx wagon is still rapid, able to hit 100km/h from rest in 4.9 seconds – identical to the current V6-powered Audi S4 Avant.

“I think we've got work to do to make the business case stand out, but I'm quietly optimistic that we'll get there and we'll see that product come to Australia”, Shafer added. We asked Jeff about the sensibility of bringing a wagon to a market that’s proven so hungry for SUVs.

“When we talk about the factory supporting our requests, Cupra has the freedom to go in different directions to other brands. Leon Sportstourer is a good example”, Shafer said.

Pricing is a little difficult to predict. The Golf R wagon commands a $3000 premium over the mechanically-identical hatch, but the VZx Sportstourer has AWD rather than the hatch's FWD. We expect you won't see much change from $70K for a Leon Sportstourer in VZx petrol or VZe plug-in hybrid guise, if they arrive locally.

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What Jeff means by having the ‘freedom to go in different directions to other brands’, is that Cupra is a new offering with a different customer base to VW and Skoda. Take the Golf R, a car with a legacy behind it. Volkswagen sells just one R wagon to nine R hatches, numbers that mean it might not make long-term sense to continue local R wagon sales, in our view.

With Cupra's proposed two-strong performance-oriented wagon offer, the brand sees more potential in the Leon Sportstourer. If all goes to plan, we could see the Leon wagon effectively replacing the Golf R Wagon locally.

Cupra stopped short of a local launch date for the Sportstourer (naturally), with Shafer instead giving a very broad timeline: “Probably not in the super short term, but we’ve got some changes coming in the not-too-distant future.”