Interesting looking car, si? And, although you probably don’t care about the aesthetic thoughts of a bloke who recently cut his own hair, I reckon it looks terrific. So you might assume this pumped-up Leon is a super duper Cupra but no, it’s more intriguing than that. This is a diesel fitted with the excellent DSG double-clutch gearbox, a sport pack that lowers and stiffens the suspension, a steroidal bodykit with 18-inch alloys, and a name apparently invented by someone who hasn’t mastered predictive text: SEAT Leon 2.0 TDI Stylance DSG with Sports Pack.

If you know your SEATs you’ll have decoded that message and realised this isn’t the full kahuna FR 170 diesel model because that’s not available with the smarty trousers semi-manual ’box that makes easy use of the TDI’s narrow power-band. In our Leon this gearbox doesn’t seem quite as slick as an Audi’s but it’s still the best paddle-shift around. Except for one thing. The Leon doesn’t actually have paddles and if you want to do your own changes, you have to use the normal gearlever. This is a bit of a shame, if hardly the last word in torture.

Anyway, paddles are about the only desirable thing this car lacks because it’s packed with all the good stuff – Bluetooth phone, iPod dock, only moderately cretinous sat-nav – that makes modern cars nicer to live with. Unfortunately none of this is standard and, along with the DSG, sport pack and body kit, it does some moderately terrifying things to the price. The basic Leon TDI Stylance is £16,395. Our spec will sting you for £23,153. Yowch.

This does beg the question: why bother? Well, we think this is the kind of slightly off-centre car evo readers might be interested in. It looks striking, those chassis mods are well judged in a firm, grippy sort of way, and performance is strong. Plus, being a VW Group diesel, it’s eminently chippable. It also feels sturdy and there’s loads of room inside, making it the sort of thing you might buy if you needed to be sensible without getting a SORN on your sense of fun.

And remember, if you spanked up a Golf GTI with DSG, nav, Xenons and the like, it would be over £26,000. Besides, the most important thing about the Leon is that it’s not a Golf. It’s a bit more individual, and it polarises opinion too because some of the evo team are so far nonplussed whereas I’m really warming to it and suspect it could be an underrated car for the more thoughtful fast hatchback buyer. If only people in the office would stop calling it a ‘diesel automatic’.