Spanish car maker SEAT is releasing the most powerful thing ever to come out of that country since the time of the Conquistadors. It’s a hot hatch called SEAT Leon CUPRA 300 and, as the name suggests, it packs 300 horsepower from a 2.0 TSI engine. Mind you, it’s only 10 hp more impressive than the CUPRA 290.

The latest high-performance CUPRA also packs 380 Nm of torque, so it’s a good job they didn’t make it front-wheel-drive – at least on the ST version where it gets the 4Drive all-wheel-drive system. 2017 SEAT Leon CUPRA 300 is packed full of driver aids and safety features such as Traffic Jam Assist, Lane Assist, Adaptive Cruise Control and Pedestrian Protection to name a few. So it is fair to say that power is pretty well harnessed.

All SEAT Leon CUPRA 300 models also get dynamic chassis control (DCC), a progressive steering system and electronic self-locking differential as standard plus CUPRA Drive Profile with four modes of Comfort, Sport, Individual and CUPRA. So depending on your mood you can set the car to be a docile hatchback or a wildly torque-steering lunatic. SEAT has not revealed the performance figures yet, but promises to let us know all about it before the car’s market launch in March 2017.