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Cupra’s growth plans will focus on both broadening its model range and expanding into new markets, according to interim CEO Markus Haupt.

Next year, it will launch the new Raval electric hot hatch, shown in near production form at the Munich motor show, on the Volkswagen Group’s MEB Entry platform. It will be the brand’s smallest model and, starting from around £22,000, its cheapest. 

Haupt told Autocar the Raval, the eighth model in Cupra’s line-up, “is very important to us”. He added: “We have a history of success with big growth, having launched seven models in our first seven years, and we need the Raval to continue this growth story.”

Cupra sold around 248,000 cars worldwide last year, 7.5% up on 2023. That trend is set to continue this year, and it should accelerate when the Raval launches next year.

But Haupt said the firm is not only relying on new models to spur growth but also actively looking into new markets. The firm had previously planned to launch in the US in the coming years, but those plans have been delayed due to market uncertainties.

Haupt said: “We don’t only need new cars to grow, we also need new markets. We are well established in more than 50 countries, more than 1200 dealers. But of course, we knew we also look to new markets because we need to keep growing.”

The current focus is on the Middle East, Haupt said, due to “feedback from the region, with customers and dealers asking ‘hey guys, when are you coming?'”

Skoda boss Klaus Zellmer says that the production version of the Vision O estate concept will be offered primarily as an electric vehicle – but that the firm “will explore all options” in terms of other powertrain options if regulations allow.

The new model is due to arrive early in the next decade, and while the Czech firm has given no technical details and only referred to it as electrified, the production version will be the first Skoda to use the Volkswagen Group’s new SSP platform.

While that is primarily an electric platform, it has designed to be highly flexible and the VW Group has confirmed that it will at least be able to accept a range-extender powertrain - as demonstrated by the Cupra Tindaya concept. 

Asked by Autocar why the firm showed the Vision O at least five years before a production version, Zellmer joked: “It’s because you guys kept on pestering us about what’s happening with the estate BEV.”

But he added: “We also needed an answer for that for ourselves. We've sold millions of Octavias and Superbs, and that puts an obligation in your business plan.”

Skoda first previewed an electric estate three years ago, which was due to sit on the current MEB platform, but eventually postponed the project. Zellmer said that was because of the use case for an estate: “For long-distance driving you need autonomous functions in a car, and that will be easier to realise with a new platform.”

Asked whether Skoda would offer other powertrains beyond an EV for the next-gen Octavia, Zellmet noted that the speed of the electric transition “has not materialised” at the speed expected. He added: “We have seen different drivetrains coming in, especially plug-in hybrids.

“Give us some time to answer those questions: with the next platform, we want to keep all avenues open in terms of what is feasible and complexity, and in terms of regulation. The current governmental direction in the EU [and UK] is that in 2035 it's the end of combustion engines, which would mean [the new model is] BEV-only.

"But we've learned we need to keep avenues open and we need to do what our customers want. The first rule of any business is that if you do what your customers want you will be successful.”

Zellmer said that another major challenge that needs to be addressed in the years before the Vision O goes into production is affordability. He said that ensuring the model can be priced similar to the existing combustion car “is one of the highest objectives we have now,  because we need to stay in that price bracket or else we're going to shock people and they'll go somewhere else.”

Measuring 4850mm long, the Vision O is notably longer than the current Octavia Estate (4698mm) but sits below the larger Superb (4902mm). The boot has more than 650 litres of space, compared with 640 litres for the Octavia. With the seats folded, that figure rises to more than 1700 litres.

The most striking aspect of the Vision O is the new exterior and interior design language, described as the next generation of Skoda’s ‘Modern Solid’ theme. That design change is seen in the new ‘Tech-loop face mask’ that houses all of the lighting elements, while an illuminated Skoda logo sits on the bonnet. There is also a new T-shaped LED light design at the rear.

There is a major focus on aerodynamics to maximise the range of the estate, including retractable door handles, integrated cooling vents on the bonnet and various louvres and sculpted side channels. Skoda has not given a drag coefficient or any other technical details, such as powertrain, battery size or performance figures.

Skoda says the Vision O was developed “from the inside out”, with a focus on customers’ needs. A 1.2m-wide ‘Horizon Display’ digital screen spans the entire dashboard just below the windscreen and offers new HMI functions for both driver and passenger. It is complemented by a large vertical touchscreen in the centre of the dashboard. There is a minimalist centre panel featuring a dial button that offers haptic feedback, while the steering wheel retains a number of physical controls.

The firm says the concept has been designed for advanced autonomous driving using an AI assistant, which is called Laura. When in AI mode the exterior lighting uses distinct colour patterns to signal to other road users. Skoda says the concept will be able to handle all driving tasks independently, except in the case of heavy rain and reduced visibility. Laura can also be used for other functions, including making revised route suggestions to match the mood of the passengers and even reading custom-generated stories.

Skoda has also added some new ‘Simply Clever’ design features to the Vision O, including four dour-housed umbrellas, a dedicated storage space for the charging cable, a portable Bluetooth speaker and a fully integrated fridge.

The Vision O’s interior makes extensive use of recycled and sustainable materials, with the seat covers made from 100% recycled PES fl aking and the use of 65% plant-based Ultrasuede material elsewhere.

Being at the wheel of RML’s single P39 prototype, as it stalks the outside lane of Millbrook’s high-speed bowl, is like filling up at a deserted forecourt at 3am. Familiar but faintly unreal.

The major controls and ergonomics are as per the 992.1 Porsche 911 Turbo S donor, which RML would prefer arrived for the four-week, half-a-million-pound conversion process with fewer than 10,000 miles on the odo. As such, if you’re confident driving even a sweet little Carrera, getting about in the GT Hypercar (P39 is the codename) should be a doddle. Or so you’d think.

Underslung off the steering boss are four serious-looking rotary dials, some of which are angrily backlit in red. My view out of the rear window is also more compromised than that of any mad Lambo, mainly because there is no rear window, just a dark nook in which lurks a steel half-cage. And beginning just above my head is the five-foot-long intake tract for a 907bhp flat six. This ensures that bouts of heavy throttle sound like God whispering directly into your ear.

“Very much a beast with two faces” is how Michael Mallock (above, right) describes the car, which was revealed in full production form at this year’s Salon Privé. The GT Hypercar is the first ware from RML’s newly minted ‘Bespoke’ division. The department is overseen by Mallock and tasked with delivering rare-groove dream machines that delight clients and show major OEMs what the company can do, and do rapidly, by applying motorsport know-how to road car manufacture.

Though the ‘bespoke’ wrapper is new, the know-how certainly isn’t. P35 was the Ferrari 550 Maranello-based RML Short Wheelbase we drove in 2022, with its picture-perfect handling and stunning cabin atmosphere. P36 was a world-class Bizzarrini Strada revival. P37 was Lotus’s GT4 Emira. We can’t talk about P38 because it’s a secretive white-label project.

Paul Dickinson has also recently been brought in as group CEO, fresh from running Bentley’s Mulliner division, to make an operation with a distinct skunkworks flavour more corporate but “not too corporate”, a glint-eyed Mallock assures us at Millbrook.

We’ve joined RML for the day as the engineers fine-tune a machine that, somehow, was still only a top-down render being discreetly shown to would-be buyers at last year’s Pebble Beach. One face of this beast, as Mallock puts it, will be in its ability to lap the Nordschleife in less than 6min 45sec. That will make the GT Hypercar among the fastest road-legal track cars on the planet.

The other, more civilised face will be an ability to cover big mileages with ease. It’s why the suspension rates in the so est setting are a touch more languid than that on the donor car. Mallock is in a good place to judge his engineer’s efforts in this respect: subsumed within this naked-carbon prototype is his faithful old daily.

RML has previous when it comes to rapid ’Ring times, of course. It white-label-engineered the Nio EP9 that in 2017 took the record for the fastest EV lap with a sensational time of… 6min 45sec.

So P39 is an ambitious car, as chief engineer, ex-Lola man and endurance racing fanatic Adam Airey explains once we’re off the bowl and the car’s body has been carefully fed back into a garage that feels narrower than went we set out.

“The main driver to start with was the Nürburgring lap time using a 992-generation Turbo S platform and giving it our body,” he says matter-of-factly. “But then Michael said the car also had to drive like a Turbo S on the road.” It’s hard not to laugh when Airey explains that this was slightly problematic, given that by this stage his team had a full race car on their hands.

“So we’ve had to come up with a Jekyll and Hyde strategy on damping and springing,” he says. Forging a split personality involved working with R53 Suspension, these days a household name in our world thanks to its involvement with Gordon Murray’s new-wave supercars.

The approach is that the P39’s spring has a primary rate nearly identical to that of the regular Turbo S, but that under load comes into a stiffer rate before you get to race car-style wire-gauze bump stops. These are there to keep the floor off the ground in extremis, when the body is slammed to the deck in its lowest ride setting and close to a tonne of downforce is made at 180mph. It means RML’s car makes more downforce than even a 911 GT3 RS, although if kilos of aero adhesion are the new bragging rights in supercar circles, those owners can strike back by fitting the Manthey package, which just pips the P39.

However, hydraulically adjustable ride height is a feature no factory 911 can currently match. The system, which can drop the car 15mm in an instant, also runs the nose-lift and a full-blown DRS wing with brilliantly theatrical Le Mans-style lights in the endplates.

Opening the DRS flap increases your slipperiness by 23%, which is a similar effect to what you get on F1 cars. It slams shut if throttle application goes below 98%. Meanwhile, the dampers are manually adjustable but run in one of three electronically controlled presets that the driver selects via one of the four steering wheel rotaries.

Another of the three rotaries is for the aero setting: swivel to Track mode and a vast chin spoiler deploys from nowhere with a loud slap. Then you have the powertrain modes and, of course, ride height. The dials themselves appear lifted from the GT3 RS but are made by RML and feel OEM-grade.

At this point, I commit the sin of asking about the bodykit concocted by ex-McLaren designer Darryl Scriven, which evokes the fabulous 911 GT1 Strassenversion of 1997. Only 20 of these homologation specials were made, so RML’s GT Hypercar will be half as rare, with 40 planned.

It’s a slip of the tongue, because I well know the gold-tinged carbon-fibre that enshrouds the underlying 911 monocoque is no mere ‘kit’. Still, it earns me a rebuke from Mallock that’s justified when we visit RML’s production facility later that day. In one bay, an upturned carbon clam the size of a skip is waiting to be flipped over and bonded onto the car’s 911 core using only 4kg of adhesive.

It’s an epic piece. Just 19kg but extending from A-pillars to rear bumper, encompassing the roof and the almighty scoop that rams air into the intake. The glue gives four technicians a 40-minute window to get the job done. It’s truly artisanal work, and along with another monumental front apron results in hardly any shutlines, for the full prototype racer aesthetic.

On the subject of the body, those intakes in the rear haunches? They’re no such thing. Unlike with the regular Turbo S, here their role is not split between feeding the engine and cooling the rear brakes. They do neither, being pure through-ducts that reduce drag by 3%. Find the right angle and you can peer right through them.

The GT Hybrid had to look totally spectacular, too. Obviously. Getting rear arches positioned just so relative to the long-tail body meant extending the underlying 992 wheelbase by 100mm via the suspension.

The tracks are also wider. Quite a lot wider, in fact – more than a wheel offset. It has necessitated new, elongated suspension links, which are beautifully machined, with geometry designed to retain the functionality of the Turbo S’s active anti-roll bars and rear-axle steering. Remapping these systems was not really an option, says Mallock.

To illustrate the complexity of modern cars, he tells me that when they swapped the seat from a 911 into a Taycan for materials testing, the radar and left window stopped working. As such, in its former life as a standard Turbo S, this prototype often carried dataloggers so RML could understand the detail of the sub-systems, and ensure the GT Hybrid’s suspension movements would be compatible.

While the fundamental kinematics of the donor car are thus largely unchanged, including the roll centres, the new lower wishbones do have camber shims for easy adjustment trackside.

Against all this, the small matter of 907bhp feels like a footnote. Hell of a footnote. Litchfield has done the work on Porsche’s 3.7-litre twinturbo motor, and after RML has stripped the donor car, the chassis heads west to Gloucestershire to have its heart put on anabolic steroids. The stock engine is robust enough that the internals need not be changed.

It’s more a question of “keeping the engine happy”, as Iain Litchfield puts it, with a surfeit of cooling, not least from uprated dual intercoolers. The uplift in power from the regular 641bhp of the Turbo S is also the result of a new electronic calibration and new turbochargers whose turbines are 6mm or so wider in diameter. This doesn’t punt up the turbo lag because it’s balanced out by the ram-air effect of the new intake and freer-flowing filters.

All this kit can be stuffed into the engine bay because RML’s long body takes the sting out of packaging constraints. The P39 has the largest catalytic converters on the market, as well as a full inconel exhaust smothered in F1-grade heat shielding. In RML’s workshops, the huge intake tracts – two polished carbonfibre anacondas curling down to each side of the intercoolers – are on full display.

Slide over the carbon sills, distended to align with the girth of the body, and how does it all feel? ‘It’ being twice the output of a BMW M2, suspension costing more than your average city car and a silhouette from La Sarthe ’97.

The engine’s malevolent burble and the eerie sense of being deep in the belly of something frighteningly potent put me in mind of the old Impreza, crossbred with an Aventador SVJ. At the same time, ride quality both taut and plush, along with this prototype’s hard-working vibe, is faintly McLaren 600LT gene-spliced with Caterham Seven Cup. All of which is to say finished RML GT Hypercars will feel unique.

In the default mode the engine is demure and puts out 740bhp or so. Ramp it up into Sport or Sport Plus and 589bhp per tonne is suddenly a reality, and is your cue to mentally buckle up. When the boost hits, acceleration is frantic – not landmine-intense but somewhere between bungee rebound and Josh Lewsey-style T-boning.

That said, even when 738lb ft wraps itself around the chassis at 4500rpm, with our Michelin Cup 2 tyres traction is just fine on this dry day, and Porsche's ceramic brakes feel supreme. It’s all manageable, in short. In the wet, without traction control? Different story, I imagine. Pure Group B.

On Millbrook’s hill route in its hunkered Track setting, the car’s stability is impressive. What the P39 longs for, though, is Pouhon or Stowe. Or Mutkurve. You sense its vast reserves of pace. Does it feel 6min-45sec-at-the-’Ring quick? Wouldn’t know; I've never been near that kind of madness. But the ceiling is clearly high – GT3 RS high, without the mechanical transparency.

This isn’t to say the P39 isn’t fun. Through the medium-speed corners at Millbrook, taken in third gear, a neat rotational energy scythes through the heft of the steering. It’s trusty but not without delicacy. Note, though, that RML has not tinkered with Porsche’s ESP and traction control set-up. As a result, if you’re pushing on in the P39, the midway PSM Sport setting, overwhelmed and flustered, locks things down early. To get a real picture of the handling, it all needs turning off.

Despite its 30-page functional-safety booklet, the hydraulic system isn’t yet homologated, so there’s no DRS en route from Millbrook to RML’s base in Wellingborough. Mallock and I haul up into the car park 55 seconds later than intended.

Inside, I finally get to behold a finished article – the purple car ready for Salon Privé – and the quality of the fit and finish is undeniable. The scoops and gullies and the drama mirror the driving experience, channelling the excesses of the 1980s and 1990s but keeping things civil and conspicuously haute-automotive.

At £495,000 before tax and the optional Track Pack that brings the cage, the hydraulic ride height and the headline powertrain figures, it’s just as well.

I ask Dickinson if being a relative unknown next to giants such as Ferrari puts unbearable pressure on RML to deliver flawlessly first time.

“That’s how RML works with our motorsport roots,” he says. “You race on Sunday and the car has to be perfect. You don’t get a second chance.”

Indeed, the GT Hybrid is ready, in record time. The next task is to prove that wild ’Ring claim.

RML GT Hypercar specifications

Price £594,000 (plus donor car) Engine 6 cyls horizontally opposed, 3745cc, twin-turbocharged, petrol Power 907bhp at 7300rpm Torque 738lb ft at 4500rpm Gearbox 8-spd dual-clutch automatic, 4WD Kerb weight 1540kg 0-60mph 2.4sec Top speed 205mph Rivals Lamborghini Revuelto, Ferrari SF90, Porsche 911 GT2 RS

Polestar has urged the European Commission (EC) not to roll back on its commitment to ban the sale of non-electric cars by 2035 ahead of crunch talks this Friday.

Automotive industry leaders will meet EC president Ursula von der Leyen on Friday to try to secure a relaxation of the CO2 rules, and only Polestar and sibling Volvo have taken the opposite view to keep the status quo.

Polestar CEO Michael Lohscheller said discussions on going all-electric had been completed and the decision already made, and reversing that was now "completely the wrong way" to go about things, particularly so given that even those looking to have the ban relaxed agreed "the future of mobility is without emissions".

"If we all agree on that, then the question is what is the best and fastest way to get there?" Lohscheller told Autocar at the Munich motor show. "I can't see that postponing it by five years is going to help anything, because we have to do the transformation anyhow. We might as well do it immediately."

Lohscheller's Polestar unveiled the new Polestar 5 sports saloon in Munich, and he used the event to poke fun at its rivals who have made U-turns on EV pledges. The event featured branding with quotes from the likes of Audi's and Mercedes' CEOs, who have made recent comments looking to preserve internal-combustion engines even though their companies have previously taken the opposite view.

Lohscheller said Europe should in fact take the opposite view on EVs and "lead on this" transition, because “then so many more opportunities come out of this, right?

"At the end of the day, it will happen anyhow. Do we say it's 2035 or 2040? I don't see any point in postponing it. The argument is always that more jobs may disappear and so on, but postponing five years may endanger more jobs, right?

"I think changes are inevitable and let's do them right away."

Lohscheller rejected the view from other car makers that there were not enough charging points, and that EV range wasn't good enough.

"I think as an industry we just need to learn to be competitive and produce cars that are more cost-competitive. I don't buy these arguments. Maybe one company can't do it, but others will find a way."