Volvo showed their first Polestar-branded model and Seat did the same with their new Cupra marque at the Geneva auto show.
Last year Volvo announced Polestar as a standalone brand for top-tier electrified models. The first is the Polestar 1, a 600-horsepower plug-in hybrid coupé. “It’s a show where a 2+2 GT finds its perfect home,” Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath says. Along with raising curiosity about the brand, Ingenlath expects that shining a spotlight on the Polestar 1 will provide a boost for the car. “We want to get people excited about it,” he said. “It becomes real when you see it in the flesh. Having this car out and showing that this [brand] is slowly becoming a reality is an important step.”
SEAT, meanwhile, promoted their Cupra Ateca compact SUV as the first model from the new subbrand which will function like Abarth does at Fiat. Seat first showed the Cupra Ateca in Barcelona last month.
With Cupra, SEAT aim to provide variants of their cars that are more powerful and more specialized than the base models. Seat have long offered model variants bearing the
Cupra moniker, but now it becomes a brand in its own right, a quasi-separate entity. SEAT officials say Cupra models will have their own dentity, as well as dedicated floor space in about 260 SEAT dealerships across Europe.
“Cupra is a big opportunity for SEAT, for our customers, and for the business,” SEAT President Luca de Meo said at the subbrand’s unveiling. “The whole Cupra project has surfaced as the dream of a group of people who were looking for a way to conquer a new group of car lovers”.
