The Seat Leon ST Cupra 280 might not be a car that is well known on this part of the world, especially when it is not officially available in Malaysia. But this estate might soon be remembered as one of the brave cars that had lapped the Green Hell as it has just set a new record of being the fastest production estate to lap the Nordschleife.
The Leon ST Cupra 280 managed to clock a timing of 7 minutes and 58.12 seconds and to give you a better idea of how fast that is, the 2007 Audi R8 V8 did it in 8 minutes and 4 seconds and not to forget being a whole 10 seconds faster than the Audi RS4 B7 estate. This lap time has also shaved 0.3 seconds from the one set by its three-door SC Cupra sibling early last year.
Powered by a 2.0-liter turbocharged engine, it has 276bhp and 258 lb-ft of torque in its disposal. All the power is sent to the front wheels and zerotohundred is dealt in 6.1 seconds and has a top speed of 250km/h. The person responsible in piloting the Cupra estate in making this record was ex-World Touring Car Championship driver Jordi Gene, brother of ex-F1 driver Marc Gene.
The car that Jordi drove in the attempt was a standard front-wheel production model, mated to a manual gearbox and fitted with Seat’s optional Performance Pack. This Performance Pack comes with a limited-slip differential, 370mm brake discs clamped by Brembo four-pot calipers, 19-inch alloy wheels wrapped in high-performance semi slicks, and a color-coded bodywork.
