The Seat Leon SC has been trimmed from the brand’s line-up, becoming the latest in a series of three-door models taken off sale by the Volkswagen Group.
Sales of three-door cars have dived in recent years, leading to their removal from brand portfolios across the industry. Seat confirmed to Autocar that the three-door Leon was discontinued due to lower demand.
In recent months, the three-door version of its Mii city car was also withdrawn, again due to the stronger demand for five-door hatchbacks.
Seat sold just 880 Leon SC cars across July, while the ST estate found 3599 homes and the five-door Leon found 10,743, meaning the three-door SC made up less than 6% of sales. For the Mii, three-door models made up just 14% of sales across July, with 129 sold to the five door's 779 sales.
Across the last two years, the Volkswagen Group’s brands have ended, or announced the end of, three-door variants of Volkswagen's Beetle, Volkswagen Polo, Scirocco and Volkswagen Up, as well as the Audi A3, leaving only a trio of three-door cars on sale.
Even these are not long for this world, however, with the Audi A1 and Volkswagen Golf going five-door-only in their next generations and the Skoda Citigo nearing the end of its life.
Elsewhere in the industry, the three-door Range Rover Evoque and Vauxhall GTC have also been withdrawn, while the Kia Procee'd is being relaunched as a five-door shooting brake, where it was formerly a rakish three-door hatch.
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