Press your right foot to the floor and the leon delivers

For the first time in my life I have a burning desire to drive an orange car, one finished in a colour so bright our photographer christens it the ‘Outpsan’, after the similarly coloured fruit. Even the gloss black wheels and dull light of the underground car park can’t soften its impact.

Heading out into the bright sunlight of the Madrid countryside, it only gets more vivid. I even begin to wonder if it might be too bold a hue for what SEAT bills as its medium-heat hatchback, now mildly facelifted and armed with a 208bhp version of the new 2-litre TSI engine found in the mk6 Golf GTI. But press your right foot to the floor and the FR delivers, hitting 62mph in 7.2sec (7.1sec with the DSG gearbox, as fitted to our test car) and not stopping until you hit 145mph – that’s a match for the new Golf under acceleration and just 3mph slower flat out. With a wide spread of torque and 11bhp more than the old FR, the engine is a solid performer right through to the rev-limiter, while the twin-clutch gearbox goes about its business with typical efficiency, helped by the standard steering-wheel paddles. The whole experience is only let down by the Leon’s slightly characterless exhaust note.

Springs that are 20 per cent softer mean the jarring ride of the old model is now replaced with a more balanced one that makes the car comfortable yet entertaining, and while the steering lacks communication on the limit, it is well weighted and accurate enough for you to attack corners with real vigour. Coupled with the VW group’s new XDS electronic limited-slip differential (standard on the FR), you can accelerate before the apex and drive out of corners with confidence, and while XDS goes about its job in a much more subtle way than a conventional slippy diff, it will tighten the line effectively until the car’s front end breaks gently into safe, predictable understeer.

Internally and externally the changes to the revised Leon are hard to spot, but they are all welcome, not least the revised centre console that sees dull plastics and poor quality switchgear replaced with classier items. The new wheels, silver mirrors, revised lights and tweaked bumpers are perhaps less obvious.

With prices expected to remain unchanged, the new FR will be four grand cheaper than the mk6 Golf GTI, despite offering performance that gets very close, so it could well become a more common sight on our roads. For me, until Wolfsburg adds Jaffa Cake Orange to its colour chart, there can only be one choice.