Fans of the upcoming Cupra Leon will no longer have to be patient: on the evening of February 20, 2020, the Spanish offshoot of the new VW Golf GTI will be officially presented. To shorten the waiting time a bit, the Seat sports sub-brand is now showing the first details of the racing version called Cupra Leon Competición.
The background: Cupra, together with the technology company HP, developed vehicle parts that come from the 3D printer – and installed them in the new Cupra Leon Competición for the first time.
“For the new Cupra Leon Competición, we manufactured the steering column module, the ventilation slots in the bonnet, the exterior mirrors, the air intake funnels for the brakes and the inlet for the water cooling using the 3D printing process,” says Xavi Serra, Head of Development at Cupra Racing. All of these parts were manufactured with the HP Jet Fusion 5200 3D printer and subjected to the demanding development tests for the new racing model.
In TCR races, the rules state that the exterior mirror of the touring car must have the same shape as that of the production vehicle. The Cupra engineers went one step further: “We wanted to install an additional function: a cooling device for the driver. We designed an air inlet in the middle of the pressure application point, ”explains Xavi Serra.
The materials from the 3D printer – like all other vehicle parts – are tested in the wind tunnel. “The greater the variety of parts that we can test in this system, the better. This enables us to make progress much faster, ”said the Cupra engineer.
Where else should the final development phase of a touring car take place than on the racetrack? More specifically, on the Portimão circuit in Portugal. Here, the Cupra Leon Competición with its 3D components was brought to its extreme limits – very much to the satisfaction of the head of development: “The results were excellent, some even surprising, because we wanted to push the limits of the material.”
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