You may or may not be the sort of driver who is suggestible to the idea of trading in a hatchback for a compact crossover like the Seat Arona – but even if you’re not, you can hardly blame a car maker for selling one at the moment.
By Seat’s estimation, the global market for supermini-based pseudo-SUVs is four times as large today as it was even as recently as 2015 – and it’s expected to continue to grow just as quickly for years to come.
For those reasons alone, any car manufacturer whose business depends even vaguely on volume and market share would need a very good reason not to introduce a car such as the subject of this road test: the Arona.
And that’s why so many have. In a segment where the likes of Renault, Nissan, Peugeot, Mazda, Ford and others are already represented, we’ve seen the likes of the Citroën C3 Aircross, MG ZS, Vauxhall Crossland X (2017-2020), Kia Stonic and Hyundai Kona all join the party in recent years. Blink and you’ll have missed at least one of them.
At times like these, one full Autocar road test a week doesn’t seem like nearly enough to stand the pace. But although we could easily devote a segment to another new jacked-up supermini every seven days for the rest of the year and still have a few left over, you can rest assured that we’re not going to.
