SEAT’s new Leon is a car that’s received much publicity since its launch and even sometime before it. It’s a car you can now have in three sufficiently different body styles, with a wide array of different engines, or if it’s not quite the car for you, the brand offers other larger or smaller models all built on VW platforms yet retailing for a cheaper price than comparable rivals.

Couple this to sharp design and you have sales going up in the UK by 20.2 percent in the first six months of 2014, compared to what was recorded in the same time frame last year.

The total number of cars it’s managed to shift in the UK is 27,342 units, which is 4,590 more than last year.The Leon was the star of the range, obviously, but the ageing Ibiza held its own as well.

In addition, while the total growth figure is 20.2 percent, the actual one for retail sales is 32.2 percent, accounting for 15,341 cars of the total sold.

In total, SEAT recorded an average growth of 9.9 percent around the world, in the first six months of 2014, selling 200,000 vehicles – up from the 2013’s 182,000 over the same period. It’s the best result for the company in the last six years, and it was made possible by a recovering western European market and a general upward trend throughout the continent.

By Andrei Nedelea

Photo Gallery