Seat Altea Hatchback 2004 - Present

Another thoroughbred from the Spanish car maestro, the Altea offers great driving pleasure despite the need to own a grown up car. Seat understand that when your family is too big for that hot hatch, you don’t necessarily want to trade up to a bloody Zafira.

With this in mind they present the Altea, an MPV built to offer room for the family without compromising driving pleasure. The styling is unmistakably that of a Seat, from the smooth front end to that squared off back door and with their smaller brothers the Altea looks set up for business. The shape is designed to offer the least resistance to the air while ensuring comfort and space on the inside. As you sit in the car the great use of space is emphasised with the clever storage boxes placed throughout the cabin. There’s even a cubby hole built into the parcel shelf, perfect for a two piece snooker cue.

The only gripe that could be levelled at the Altea is that it only has five seats, which means that rather than competing with the Zafira and the Renault Scenic it’s sat next to the Ford Focus S-Max (which also offers a great drive), and other 5 seaters. If the Altea just offered an extra seat then it could truly be judged with other MPVs but while it only offers five seats it will surely only be viewed as a tall estate car?

The performance and handling are, as we’ve come to expect from Seat, great. Yes, as with most models of car, the entry point in the engine range, is inadequate and not really up to the job. The 1.6 petrol engine just about offers enough get up and go for in town driving but is soon exposed on the motorway. Unusually there is no smaller diesel model and the diesel range starts with the 1.9 TDi, which at 51 mpg is the most economical. The star in terms of performance is the 2.0 FSI, which shares an engine with the VW Golf GTI, but if you look at fuel consumption the best of the bunch has to be the 2.0 TDI which can hit 125 mph and still return 47 mpg.

There are a number of different gearbox options all which are more than adequate for the job. The 1.6 and 1.9 TDIs have a standard five-speed manual gearbox; the rest have six gears. The 2.0 FSI is also available with a six-speed Tiptronic gearbox (if you feel the need to keep your hands on the wheel all the time. The very quick dual-clutch (but no clutch pedal), six-speed DSG gearbox is optional with the 2.0 TDI engine, for that race car feel.

Driving the Altea is a great experience and among MPVs it is among the best but with only five seats one could argue that it’s (ironically), one seat short.

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