ROAD TESTS Cupra Leon vs rivals

be left a little lukewarm by the car ’ s e-Skyactiv X engine Against the clock, the 3 is the quickest model here, but it doesn’t feel that way in the real world With peak torque so high up the rev range, it takes a lot more throttle and a lot more revs to make similar progress to its rivals

That’s less of a problem if you ’ ve chosen Mazda’s brilliant six-speed manual gearbox, but the auto isn’t so enjoyable to use It will leave you feeling as if the Mazda is rather gutless when compared with any of the other similarly priced cars on the market

Practicality

WHEN it comes to cabin space, the Mazda brings up the rear of this group While kneeroom is just about a match for the BMW, headroom is a little tighter

The roof has quite a pronounced curve above the doors, which means that headroom is as much compromised to the sides as it is by the roofline above The centre seat is hard and narrow, too

At 330 litres, the boot is also the smallest here, and the load lip, like the Leon’s, is quite high The rear seat backs fold completely flat, revealing a total volume of 1,022 litres – a figure that’s also behind its rivals here On the plus side, the Mazda has a huge central bin between the front seats, and it has the largest glovebox of this trio