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Concept

This is the Seat Ibiza Cupster concept

Published: 21 May 2014

Seat has commemorated 30 years of its most successful model, the Ibiza, by lopping its head right off and painting it orange. It's called the Cupster, and it's coming to Worthersee.

The roofless supermini concept shares much of the body shell as the production model right up to the shoulder line, at which point everything gets airy.

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Instead of a roof, there's, um, sky, and instead of a front windscreen, there's a short, wraparound strip of glass. The concept is decked out in ‘new orange' paint, with a dark grey cover behind the seats.

The lack of a proper windscreen has necessitated a lowering of the seats to protect occupants from the vagaries of everyday road travel. As such, the racing bucket seats are mounted 80mm lower than the standard Ibiza, so you won't get any flies in your mouth, and the steering wheel is layered in leather that what the manufacturer describes as ‘wonderful to the touch'.

In fact, the entire cockpit has been styled after the Ibiza race cars from the Ibiza Trophy series, featuring minimalist instruments and black Alcantara upholstery.

Power wise, you're looking at the VW Group's venerable 1.4-litre turbocharged four-pot engine, here producing 176bhp and running through a dual-clutch automatic gearbox to the front wheels, which measure 18in.

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"The Ibiza has always been the heart of Seat, a young dynamic car with an emotional design and a good head for the practical things in life," Seat president Jürgen Stackmann notes.

Yeah, it had a good head, until you chopped it off...

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