Besides the ID. GTI, the other big reveal from the VW Group at the Munich Motor Show was from Cupra. As a reminder, Cupra is the performance-focused offshoot of Spanish car brand SEAT, which has been owned by VW for a while now. The brand doesn’t sell anything in America (though it has been talked about) but the DarkRebel concept you see above is pretty hard to ignore.
The name is a bit goofy, sounding like a potential Star Wars spin-off series coming soon to Disney+, and actually the design wouldn’t look out of place in the seedier parts of Coruscant. But all of that can be quite entertaining. The long nose with the cabin set almost halfway back are dramatic. There’s also a lot going on with the vents, creases, scoops and more. Even the headlights are a collection of little triangles, which are then echoed in the taillights. The aerodynamic wheels are just as geometric and feature lots of strakes. We wouldn’t call it all beautiful, but it gets your attention.
The interior in comparison is a bit more restrained, but only a bit. The centerpiece, somewhat literally, is the pillar dividing the driver and passenger areas of the dash. It’s made of a curvy lattice. A simple screen sits ahead of the ambient lit steering wheel, and the wraparound section of the dash that goes along the base of the windshield doubles as a display.
Unfortunately, that’s about all there is to the Cupra DarkRebel. It doesn’t even have hypothetical drivetrain details beyond it being electric. Furthermore, we wouldn’t anticipate any kind of production model to come of it. This is a genuinely classic style of concept car. It’s all about trying out some wild styling ideas, seeing how people like it, and applying bits and pieces to production cars. So future Cupras could be… interesting, to say the least.
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