Opposite the Olympia, Boulevard de la Madeleine, in Paris, a stone’s throw from Chanel and the Hemingway bar at the Ritz, Cupra, the new Spanish automobile brand, is doing everything possible to be spotted by Parisians and tourists. On Saturday, November 4, it will open a Cupra City Garage which is unlike any other car dealership since it is also… a pastry shop.
Gourmands will find the creations of chef Jeffrey Cagnes, well known to fans of the show “Le Meilleur Pâtissier”, on M6. Having cut his teeth within the Stohrer house, at Hédiard, but also alongside Sébastien Gaudard and Jean-François Piège, he has a CV as long as his arm. For Cupra, he revisited his specialties: the Paris-Brest becomes a Paris-Barcelona, the baba au rhum a baba à sangria and the crème brûlée a Catalan cream. These cakes all have a sign that recalls the brand or the route. “The chief has entered the Cupra tribe”explains its communications director, Cécilia Taieb.
There “Cupra tribe”, it’s not just an expression. At the company’s headquarters, in Martorell, 30 kilometers from Barcelona, everyone wears a distinctive sign. For Cécilia Taieb and her boss, Wayne Griffiths, it’s a bracelet; for others, it’s a navy blue hooded sweatshirt with the copper logo. The global marketing director of SEAT and Cupra, Ignasi Prieto, opted for a t-shirt born from a collaboration with the star singer Rosalia…
Created in 2018, Cupra has established itself as “the future of SEAT”to use the expression of Thomas Schäfer, the boss of Volkswagen (VW), at the time of the Munich Motor Show, where Cupra, the Spanish Tom Thumb, the latest brand of the group, had a large, particularly well placed and very busy.
This success was by no means obvious. Such a launch in a saturated market was a crazy challenge. It all started with a business seminar, where the ideas fair was open. The boss of SEAT, an emblematic Spanish brand founded under Franco, which the automobile unions helped to overthrow, was then Luca de Meo, appointed in 2020 general director of Renault.
Attacking the American market
The SEAT racing team came up with the idea. The Spanish manufacturer already made limited editions, with a sporty look and more expensive, the SEAT Cupra (abbreviation of “cup racing”). Why not design a brand in its own right? These enthusiasts had identified a niche: ” Between the (…) premium and generalists, there was an unoccupied space for a sports brand, younger, more affordable”, explains Ignasi Prieto. Luca de Meo, who likes to draw during meetings, sketched a logo, a small copper tribal sign. Cupra was then born.
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