Vijay Pattni takes an extra dose of brave pills to sample a tuned Seat Leon Cupra with more power than the new Ford Focus RS.

Oh.My.God. Hot hatches are supposed to be hot - not scorching. Not terrifying. Not ear-shatteringly explosive.

I've been in the company of this Revo-tuned Seat Leon Cupra for around 30 seconds and already I'm scared. It's sitting innocently enough in the middle of a pristinely-maintained workshop floor in a quiet industrial estate in Daventry.

It's got flared arches, 18-inch black wheels, a centrally-mounted exhaust and is painted in championship white.

And it's flanked by Kevin and Rob – two Revo employees who are smiling like loons...

“We're just car enthusiasts doing what we love - tuning cars”, explains Kevin.

Yes - tuning cars. But what they see as tuning, I see as gene-engineering. What they see as 'quite fast', I see as 'pant-wettingly powerful'.

Confused?

Well, Revo set up shop in 2002, and started out as a small outfit making a name for itself as a tuner of taste and calibre, remapping engine software to provide a better all-round drive. You won't find any mad wings or rocket-fuelled monsters which have a propensity to spontaneously combust 500 yards down the road.

What you will find however, is a souped-up super-hatch with more power running through its front wheels than the doyen of the Essex nightlife – the new Focus RS.

That's right, you heard correct. More power than a Focus RS.

And when you build a hatch capable of embarrassing Ford's absolute finest, you get our attention…immediately.

“We just thought nobody really does the Leon. And it's a shame because we reckon the chassis can handle a lot more power”, explains Rob, speaking so calmly you think all they've done is change a wiper blade and whacked on a couple of go-faster stripes.

But deep in the bowels of their workshop – and with a little help from their 'computer geek' friend in America – they have created a monster worthy of legend. Something which will go down in history through the ages, perhaps told as a warning story to naughty children who won't eat their greens. "Eat up children, or the Revo Cupra will come and get you..."

I suppose there's no point wasting any more time explaining how scary this thing looks - because the boys at Revo have tuned this standard Seat Leon Cupra to produce 360bhp.

Gallery: The Revo Seat Leon Cupra (Click to view)

More than an E46 BMW M3. More than an Audi S4. More than a Mitsubishi Evo FQ-330.

Revo has an office in the USA, where one of their programmers sits and dreams up software to boost the VAG group engine range.

“One of our developers in the US – he’s like a machine”, Kevin says. “He reads binary code how we read newspapers – he’s like Neo from The Matrix.

“He’ll look at a page of code with thousands of numbers on and pick out one number from the middle and say, ‘that’s wrong’.

“And after that, you take him out to the pub and he’ll sink 6 or 7 pints. Easy.”

With that kind of programming – and beer swilling – muscle, Kevin and Rob finish the prep talk and throw us the keys.

“There are some great roads around here - just bring it back in one piece”, they say.

I try and quantify what they have built. Imagine a bare-knuckle boxing champion. And then imagine the upstart who walks through the door, knocks his teeth out and then orders a glass of champagne to celebrate.

That's the Revo Cupra.

Fire it up and the exhaust note hints that something sinister lies beneath, but it’s not until we hit the quiet B roads circling Revo’s Daventry headquarters that the fireworks begin…

The tuned 2-litre turbo engine dominates the driving experience. Fire it through the smooth gearshift and the intake drowns the cabin – it genuinely sounds as if it’s swallowing squirrels en route. The exhaust roar, intake sound and sheer speed combine to provide a heady cocktail with massive grin-inducing ability.

We were mightily impressed with the way this thing handles its power. The guys at Revo have only lowered and firmed up the suspension, and the Leon certainly felt ‘chuckable’. It gripped well, handled sweeping corners easily and – most importantly for us petrolheads – put a huge smile on our faces.

You may think that this level of tuning brings with it a wallet-shredding price – but it doesn’t. The simple engine remap, intercooler, intake and fuel pump costs less than £2,500 – which is an absolute bargain.

And with used Seat Leon Cupra prices hovering at around £14,000 on the site, we reckon this has to be the performance hatch of the century…

Thanks to Kevin and Rob at Revo - for more information visit Revo's website.

Video: the Revo-tuned Seat Leon Cupra