The third generation SEAT Leon had groundbreaking influence in the history of the brand's compact cars. For the first time, SEAT offered a 3-door body in the most popular segment in Europe, named Leon SC and unveiled in the 2013 Geneva Motorshow, held in March. The Leon SC went on sale from May. It was the first time that the Leon, born in 1999, was available in more than one different body.

The Leon III had been launched in the previous year's Paris Motorshow, initially with the standard 5-door body. The line of the new generation Leon was based on the 2010 Luc Donckerwolke-designed IBE prototype, but from 2011 Alejandro Mesonero-Romanos was SEAT's head of Design and he was in charge of the Leon III design (and also the Leon IV).

The Spanish designer was also responsible for defining the guide lines of the Leon SC, a vehicle designed "for being the most attractive in its segment", as the brand's president put it. The SC was slightly shorter (35 mm less in wheelbase) and lower (13 mm) than the 5-door, so it had a distinctive coupe appearance and looked substantially different from its sibling. But an increasing sporting allure was not detrimental to the functionality - for instance, the Leon SC kept the same trunk capacity (380 litres) as its 5-door companion.

The SC name (Sport Coupé) was the same used by SEAT in the Ibiza IV's 3-door model. But the diversification of the Leon III family did not finish with the SC offering. At the end of 2013 a third variant arrived, the ST estate (Sports Tourer), thus completing a range with options to cater for all tastes (3-door SC, 5-door and ST estate) in parallel with the Ibiza IV's, which also offered an ST version as well as the SC.

Interestingly enough, by designing the Leon SC from its original 5-door sibling, SEAT had repeated a trick of which it had plenty of experience - but the other way round. Sure enough, SEAT had been designing its own 4 or 5-door models from the corresponding 2 or 3-door cars for 50 years. But with the Leon SC the brand did the opposite it had done with the 600, the 850, the 127 and the first Ibiza, all of them 2 or 3-door cars from which SEAT created their respective 4 or 5-door versions. Another novelty of the Leon SC is that it was the first 3-door SEAT in the hard-fought C-segment of compact cars.

The León III SC unit which is part of SEAT HISTÓRICOS' Collection is one the cars shown in the SEAT stand at the 2013 Geneva Motorshow. Actually, this white car was the very first Leon SC built, but because the chassis numbers were correlative since the 5-door model production had started some months before, there's nothing that tells you that this is indeed the number 1 Leon SC.

The initial Leon SC range of powertrains had 5 petrol and 4 diesel, from a 86 HP 1.2 TSI to a 184 HP 2.0 TDI CR. This first Leon SC built is powered by a 105 HP 1.6 TDI CR. Using the Start&Stop system, the car offers reasonable performance with CO2 emissions of only 99 g/km. In 2015 this engine was replaced by a new variant with a power output of 110 HP.