Written by Luke Wilkinson Updated: 10 August 2023

Cupra used to be a by-word for raw, uncompromising hot hatch perfection. Have things softened in the years since the badge became a brand of its own, and started putting its stamp on the SUV world? We’re driving the sharply-styled Cupra Formentor VZ 310 to see how it stacks up.

Reports by Adam Binnie

Update 1: Welcome

We welcome the arrival of what appears to be my Goldilocks hot hatch – just the right amount of power, space, comfort, and style for a late-30s father of two.

The arrival of this Cupra Formentor has got me in a reflective mood, so apologies while you endure a bit of story time.

Cupra is a new(ish) car brand that until 2018 was just a badge found on the bootlids of the fastest SEAT models – a bit like AMG on a Mercedes-Benz or vRS on a Skoda.

One of the very first cars I drove during my first week at Parkers was the contemporary hot hatch king – a SEAT Leon Cupra, which was being tested for six months by my colleague Gareth. He handed me the keys to his 280hp long termer, in the middle of a frosty January, to someone he’d only met a couple of days previously. Obviously, I didn’t give him time to change his mind.

That car made a lasting impression on me. I’ve always loved a hot hatch but the Cupra offered something different to a VW Golf R or Audi S3 – cars that share the same engine and power. It was the raw, uncompromising way it delivered its power that I loved. And the way it looked.

The engine was loud and boosty, the DSG auto ‘box hung onto low gears belligerently refusing to shift up, and the differential summoned seemingly endless grip from the front axle. It was focussed and exciting and I took a very long way home that night.

Other Cupra models have come and gone through the Parkers office in that time (including a Leon Cupra ST estate long termer, below, that I really wish I’d assigned to myself instead of James Dennison) and with that evolution has come greater refinement and increasing use of all-wheel drive. They’ve all been brilliant cars in their own right, but it was that rigid, scrabbly, 2014 car that sticks in my memory the most.

And so finally we arrive at the Cupra Formentor that will be the subject of this long-term test. And my question is this – now that the badge has broken away as its own entity, with this car be like those wild early Leon Cupra hatches, or the more mature models that followed?

There’s also the question of my own shifting priorities here. I’ve said numerous times now in several different long-term reports how my love of lift-off oversteer and pop and bang exhausts has grown into an appreciation for something quiet and comfortable that can transport my kids and bike around in a relaxing way.

I was never convinced by the assertion that a VW Golf R is as good as being an ordinary Golf as it is a performance hot hatch. No matter the spec I’ve always found the ride hard even in comfort mode and the temptation to use all +300hp too great. Neither of those things is bad of course, but neither are present in a less performance focussed model, and therefore it’s always felt like a Golf R first and foremost.

Well, the good news from my early driving impressions is that is seems the Cupra’s qualities and my own have converged in what might be an absolute Goldilock’s combination of serenity and speed. It’s comfy when it needs to be and searingly fast when it doesn’t. You can drive it slowly with just as much satisfaction as absolutely railing it around a roundabout.

Somehow, and I don’t know whether it’s the iterative improvement of the technologies that enable it, or the fact the Formentor sits higher up, but it’s finally a proper Jekyll and Hyde car. Comfortable enough for passengers to not know they’re sitting in a 310hp monster machine, yet capable of delivering lurid cornering g-force at the press of a button. I really like it.

I also really like the way it looks, the fancy interior lighting (more on this later), the loud Beats stereo, and the factory-fit pops and bangs from the exhaust. I thought engine character had been largely filtered out by successive European emission regulations, and here I am in a car with an exhaust note that wouldn’t sound out of place in Need for Speed Underground.

All of these early impressions prompted a chat with my colleague Luke to try and define my feelings towards the Cupra. Hoping but failing to stumble on a long German or Danish word to describe the sensation of missing something before it has gone, we settled on “anticipatory nostalgia” and “pre-emptive melancholy”.

Putting it simply, I’m really rather taken by the Formentor, and already gutted about the fact it’s not going to be with us forever. The Cupra press office is going to have a fight on its hands getting the keys back.

Update 2: Better than a Golf R?

Or more accurately, how does the Cupra Formentor SUV stack up against its more practical VW Golf R Estate rival?

At the risk of losing you immediately I thought it made sense to talk about practicality and comfort first up, including how well the Cupra Formentor copes with my bulky hobbies. We can talk all about performance and handling in a later update, and there is much to discuss there too.

My principal question for this car is whether it’s as good as a VW Golf R Estate like the one Keith and Alan ran recently, because that is the absolute pinnacle* slayer of both supercars and tip trips – a capacious and fast family estate that is just as happy with a boot full of garden waste as it is gapping unexpecting BMW owners at a set of traffic lights.

*Ignoring the Audi RS 6, of course

We’ll get into specifics in a moment but when it comes to outright boot space the Cupra is immediately on the ropes. The VW has 611 litres on offer while the Formentor lags behind with 420 litres.

You’d expect an estate and an SUV to be a bit closer in capacity. But in reality, the Cupra is more of a tall hatchback than a SUV, so it’s never really going to compete punch-for-punch with a boxy wagon.

It also has that sporty falling roofline, which looks very dramatic from the outside but eats into the available space in the boot. I think it’s a fair trade, the Formentor’s side profile is curvier than the Golf wagon without totally wrecking boot and rear legroom.

In contrast the Cupra monsters the Golf hatchback’s 381 litres, which makes sense when you think about it. So, it’s somewhere between the two – not as boxy as the estate, but bigger than the hatch, and with a more on-trend silhouette to boot.

There’s a bit more space under the boot floor but it’s largely filled with a subwoofer and the tyre inflation kit, so other than storing small items you don’t want to roll around, there’s not much point lifting it up.

A nerdy point of interest – the bootlid opens automatically when you press a button on the driver’s door or key, or if you wave your foot under the back of the car. This feature has been as temperamental in the Formentor as in every other car I’ve tested it in.

The really cool thing though is that you can also close the bootlid remotely, also by holding the button on the key. Don’t ask me why but this always impresses me. You can also get a full-size bag of golf clubs in there too, although only just.

Talking of big hobbies, you’ll have no doubt spotted the bike on the roof in the main image, and that’s attached using some official Cupra roofbars and my old Thule bike carriers.

The horizontal bars clamp to the car’s roof rails super quickly using a single 5mm allen bolt, which I absolutely have not been tightening with a ratchet driver, and have instead been torquing correctly with the supplied tool.

Once attached the bars have covers that lock over the fixing with a key so people can’t just unscrew your roof rack and walk off with it.

The bars themselves are pretty quiet but my Thule bike carriers whistle at an unbelievable volume. They’ve been noisy on other cars but are particularly bad here, presumably for some sort of aero reason, so it’d be worth trying out a set before committing to purchase if you can.

That said, the roof rack as a package is super easy to use and I remove it as a single item to store in my garage when it’s not needed. Fuel economy is a bit of a sore spot for this car at the best of times and I could do without the additional hit the rack comes with.

One very nice feature in the Formentor is the full-length glass roof, which still operates when you’ve got bikes on top, and also means you can keep and eye on whether they’ve fallen off or not. Which is always handy if you’re a bit of a worrier like me.

All-in-all the Cupra has been a superb bike transporter – its roofline isn’t too tall when it comes to lifting up heavy bikes and its all-wheel drive system gives me extra confidence when I’ve had to park in sketchy mud or gravel car parks, even if it’s only on road tyres.

I do have to remind myself I’ve got bikes on the roof at times though because this is a very punchy car that can cling onto corners like it’s got spiked tyres and I don’t know what g-force my bike carriers can sustain. And nor do I want to find out.

I also found the heated wheel very useful when I discovered my bike gloves smelled absolutely awful and needed a hasty wash in the sink before a ride. Simply pop them on damp and activate the heat and they’re dry in minutes, because it gets so unbelievably hot it’s sometimes hard to hold with bare hands. Sure, you look a bit weird, but you can’t put a price on fresh, dry gloves. Probably a bit of a niche use-case.

Some quick fire features around the cabin that I love include the sometimes subtle (and often not) Cupra styling. This encompasses a set of illuminated kick plates (17-year-old me is melting at the thought) and copper-coloured highlights like the badge on the wheel and the heating vent surround.

I also love the copper stitching on the wheel and the brushed aluminium trim that separates the upper and lower dashboard, plus the pattern sewn into the material on the door.

Circling back to that Golf R comparison and I think the Cupra looks much better inside. It’s certainly more interesting, even if it’s not entirely to everyone’s taste, but for me it’s absolutely spot on.

It is true that like many VW-group cars of this era the infotainment screen and its lack of buttons means it’s a bit tricky to use. There’s a pair of heating controls and a volume slider under the screen and they’re not backlit, which makes them virtually unusable at night-time.

The screen itself is responsive and there’s a small ledge to rest your hand on when trying to jab at it on the move but it’s not as easy to turn the air con up and down as with a physical controller. The voice control is very clever and can adjust the heating when you say things like “I’m hot” or “I’m cold” but that’s not really a solution.

All of that said, I have got used to it in the time I’ve owned the Formentor and honestly it doesn’t bother me anymore. I mostly use Android Auto and other than putting my heated seat on, rarely fiddle with the heating any way. Plus, there’s a physical volume controller on the steering wheel.

There are quite a few buttons on the wheel, as it goes, which I’d normally fit a bit annoying but they’re useful in the Formentor and mean you can keep your eyes on the road while doing things like putting the heated wheel on to dry your soggy gloves.

The engine start and drive mode buttons are also present here – is this a bit of a gimmick? That’s for you to decide, but for what it’s worth I like the mode selector being there at least. It’s much easier to get in, start the car and then immediately put it into Cupra mode with this set up.

Elsewhere there are some nice nods to practicality. A wireless phone charger on a downward ramp so it doesn’t slide around under hard acceleration or braking, levers in the boot to drop the rear seats, and separate heating controls in the rear (that can be adjusted and locked from the central screen).

The reversing camera is clear and easy to use but I do think it’s a bit odd that it’s not a 360-view item on a car this expensive. I’ve not entirely missed that feature because visibility out of the Cupra is actually pretty good, but it’s the one surprising absence on the spec sheet.

Actually, that’s not true – because while the driver gets electronic adjustment, the passenger has to make do with manual controls. I know that’s not the end of the world, but it seems a little stingy, especially seeing as the front passenger seat is much more likely to need to be adjust than the driver, at least in my family, where I do most of the driving.

That aside I do want to pick up on the seats, because they are absolutely excellent. Not only do they fulfil my boy-racer dreams with their buckety support and race harness cut outs, but they’re also really comfy on a long drive. More like a sporty armchair than a hard race car seat. Plus the Cupra logo embossed into the leather looks mega.

There’s plenty of space in the rear seats for two adults and you can squeeze a third in there for short journeys, but the sculpted bench makes it a bit of a precarious perch. That said, it’s ideal for my kids’ booster seats and they have plenty of legroom even behind my driving position.

One final feature we all enjoy is the Beats stereo – yes, its subwoofer robs bootspace but it makes up for it with high-quality, punchy audio.

There are a bunch of different sound profiles you can choose, varying from a faithful studio mode to an immersive stereo setting that makes the soundstage feel larger than the car. My only complaint really is that is doesn’t go quite loud enough. I like a subwoofer to really rattle the rear-view mirror.

In fairness that’s probably not great from a safety perspective and also could be something to do with my aging ears. It’s a good bit of kit, either way.

Update 3: Keep it light

The last update was a bit of a long read, so this one’s shorter and more focussed (on Cupra’s lighting design)

This one is all about the Formentor’s lights – I’m only supposed to write four updates in total but I’ve slid this one in as an extra, which should give you a clue about how much I like them.

Not the headlights (although those are great) but specifically the way Cupra has used lighting to enhance the already strong design and style of the Formentor.

Let’s start with the full-width taillight in the picture above, which looks superb on the road and visually distinguishes this car from other VW Group products. I absolutely love it, which is an odd thing to think about a taillight.

Guiding you into the car in the dark (and illuminating any puddles you might otherwise step into) are a pair of bright Cupra logos that project from the door mirrors onto the floor.

This is an example of what marketing people light to call “surprise and delight” – it’s hardly the most expensive or useful feature in the world to include on a car, but I’ve had so many people comment on them.

I think it’s partly because of the logo itself (which looks like the Bat Signal) but also the definition in the light – the edges of the logo are so crisp and focussed, it’s hard to imagine how Cupra has managed it.

Next is the lighting used in the cabin, not least the illuminated kickplates, which I’ve already said would have been a dream come true for 17-year-old me.

I always wanted to fit something similar to my first car, but it involved a lot of drilling into the sill and I was never brave enough.

Again though, this is hardly a deal-breaking feature but it’s something that makes this car stand out from rivals and elevates the perceived quality of its interior.

Inside the car there’s an LED strip that runs the width of the wrap-around dashboard and looks particularly good at night. I like how in red it mirrors the taillight on the outside of the car.

There are several different preset colour modes, or you can tie the ambient light to the drive mode you’re in, and there’s even an option to customise the light strip and door light combination to whatever colours you like.

I’ve had other cars with similar light design before (most notably an Audi A4 Avant) and was a bit surprised to see that unlike in that one, the Cupra’s interior lights don’t stretch into the back doors as well. Which is a bit of a shame.

That said, the light bar in the Cupra does some clever things that the Audi didn’t, the most impressive of which from my perspective is the integrated blind spot warning.

I’ve always though mounting this orange bulb on the outside of the car, often on the inside of the door mirror, is distracting for other drivers.

It’s a clever touch to integrate this function directly into the existing LED strip inside the car, where it can illuminate whenever it senses a vehicle entering your blind spot.

Update 4: Performance and handling

In which we drive on fun roads in south Wales to assess the Cupra Formentor’s abilities

On the face of it this could very well be the shortest update of the lot, because the Cupra Formentor’s performance is quite predictable – it’s very fast and sticks to the tarmac like it’s on rails.

I suspect you’re after a more nuanced report, and while that intro is a bit flippant, it does highlight something in the car’s character. It wouldn’t be fair to call a car that is such fun to drive two-dimensional, at its heart it’s an all-weather point-to-point machine.

That’s something of a contrast to the old Cupra Leon, which as I’ve already said, was pretty raw and scrabbly. However, one consistent factor then and now is the 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol engine under the bonnet. Well actually it’s beneath a very understated plastic cover.

This has steadily increased in power output over the years and now produces 310hp and 400Nm of torque, which is a lot, but it’s so ably managed by the seven-speed automatic transmission and all-wheel drive, that it feels somewhat less dramatic than you’d expect.

These two elements combined mean you never suffer from a missed gearshift or lack of traction, and 0-62mph can be achieved by simply standing on the gas pedal and waiting 4.9 seconds. It’s also pleasing to be driving something as uncomplicated as a pure petrol engine. Forget having to plug the Formentor in, it’s not even a mild-hybrid.

VW’s DSG auto hasn’t always been as good as it is here – I can definitely remember a time when hot Golfs and Leons felt hesitant to kick down unless you really pushed the pedal hard, and then they’d shift into an inappropriately low gear and throw everyone back in their seats.

Pleasingly it seems a lot more sensitive in the Formentor, regardless of which drive mode you’re in, and happy to knock the box down one gear to give you a bit more immediate shove without the revs jumping close to the limiter.

I think it helps that the engine has so much torque and is happy to pull hard from low engine speeds. There’s a noticeable bump in power when the turbo is up to full speed, but otherwise it’s a very flexible and usable unit in normal driving. It sounds great too – artificially augmented in the cabin but quite naturally muscular in tone, with some hilariously loud pops and bangs from the exhaust when you release the gas pedal.

Truth be told I didn’t find much use for the steering wheel mounted paddles (although I noted that they’re a decent size now, which wasn’t always the case) because the gearbox was usually a step ahead of me in selecting the right ratio.

The same balance can be found in the ride and handling these days too – Cupra mode used to be the preserve of race tracks or at least the most billiard-table smooth roads, but there’s definitely a degree of pliability in the Formentor that I wasn’t expecting.

I wouldn’t recommend driving around in the sportiest mode all the time (although to be fair, I usually do) because it’s much more settled in the Comfort setting, but if Cupra mode is all the car had I don’t think I’d feel too hard done by.

This extra flex results in a bit more body movement than I was expecting, even in its most tied down setting. It’s not roly poly by any means and if anything the body roll gives you some useful insight into how hard you’re pushing on.

That’s to say you won’t get much of that feedback through the steering wheel. It’s very nicely weighted and direct without being annoying, but otherwise completely mute to what the front wheels are doing below you.

Show me a steering rack that’s any different these days though – they simply don’t exist in anything this side of a Lotus, so that’s not really a complaint. It goes where you point it without having to overcorrect all the time, and really that’s all you can ask for.

The brakes are phenomenal too. I was surprised to see the Brembo calipers peering out behind the big wheels and then categorically unsurprised at how good they were. Not massively bitey at the top of the pedal but with huge power that builds predictably through the stroke, and great fade resistance too.

Finally, as I’ve mentioned up top, the all-wheel drive system is largely infallible in the dry. It’s basically a front-wheel drive car in normal conditions, and only throws power rearwards to help the balance of grip remain neutral between the axles. It won’t do big skids, basically.

Some all-wheel drive systems go a step further and are largely rear-driven in steady state, or somewhat keener to send power rearwards to help rotate the car, which results in a much more dynamic and responsive feeling to the handling.

The Cupra’s set up means it feels incredibly grippy and predictable in all conditions, so you don’t need to manage traction levels even when it’s pouring with rain. For some that’ll be everything they want and more, but if you like to be more involved in the driving process, it might leave you a little numb.

That said, the VW Golf R (which shares the same engineering as the Cupra Formentor) has had access to a special “drift mode” for a while now, which makes the car much more entertaining to drive. Whether or not the new Formentor will get this or not is to be seen, but in my opinion it’d be the icing on an already very accomplished cake.

Like I said in the intro, most of the Cupra Leons I’ve driven over the years have been uncompromising, and while that’s fun for a bit, it’s not the easiest thing to live with. The fact the Cupra Leon can be even quicker but also capable of dialling it back and behaving like an ordinary family car when it needs to is great testament to its extraordinary breadth of ability.

Update 5: Farewell

I knew this day was coming, but the email asking when Cupra could collect my Formentor still came out of the blue. Has it really been four months already?!

There’s a curious emotion in this job when you wave goodbye to a particularly fast or expensive car, and it feels something like relief. If you’d said to me ten years ago that I’d be half-and-half upset and pleased to see something like a Ferrari or McLaren collected from my house, I wouldn’t believe you.

I think it’s the satisfaction of seeing it go back in one piece, without a kerbed wheel or supermarket door-ding, let alone anything more serious. Knowing you’ve been trusted with something really valuable, and you’ve been able to do your job without damaging it, is quite satisfying.

There was no such relief when the Cupra was collected. In fact, I couldn’t even be in the office when it was due to be picked up because I knew it would be too hard to see it drive away without me in it – I had to drop it off on Tuesday for its Thursday collection. To say it’s got under my skin would be an extreme understatement.

I can only think of a couple of long termers where this has happened, and it’s usually related to a trip I’ve done or some other memories related to the car – the Skoda Kodiaq I had when my daughter was born, the Audi A4 Avant we drove through France when my son was little, the VW Transporter my wife and I took around the NC500.

Conversely, the Cupra Formentor was here for four pretty ordinary months. We were due to take it camping but I got a puncture the afternoon before we left and so we went in my wife’s car. I have fallen in love with it on school runs, rainy Saturday morning football matches, and commutes to the office. Which makes it all the more impressive, really.

Key to this appeal for me was the duality of practicality and performance that this car offers. On one hand it could be a quiet and comfortable family wagon, with more bootspace than a hatchback and a taller ride height to ease the installation of heavy child seats and children.

On the other hand, at the press of a button, it could transform into a hugely effective point-to-point machine, summoning enormous grip and hugely entertaining acceleration in any weather. It felt anchored to the tarmac, and capable of pulling a twisty country road apart like a Cheestring. Not everyone will love its tied-down nature, but I grew to love the predictability behind its performance, the swift but safe progress it offered my family.

Often cars like this are unsurprisingly good at going fast, and just about good enough at working day-to-day. What impressed me most about the Formentor was just how capable and even rewarding it was to drive loaded up with my family and all their stuff in my boot. It never once made me feel like I was wasting its potential just driving it normally, never frustrated at sitting in top gear or overly keen to get going.

It’s been said that the UK loves a hot hatchback for exactly these reasons – on our broken tarmac they are among the fastest performance cars available, offering unrivalled, usable performance. The Formentor with its extra ride height and compliance on potholed roads took this idea and really ran with it.

But I also loved the way it looked, the creative use of lighting inside and out, and the sense of humour it possessed – from the pop and bang exhaust to the prominent position of the “traction control off” button in the middle of the centre console.

There are always negatives, and the Formentor is not immune from them. In this format it is a thirsty car – I averaged 27mpg during my time, which is potentially quite off-putting. I got more on the motorway of course, and there were several negative factors that might not apply to you, such as me putting my bike on the roof, and insisting on driving around in Cupra mode rather than Comfort or Eco. I think the stereo could be louder as well. But that’s about it.

It goes without saying that there are models in the range that are cheaper to run, and in the cold light of day those probably make more sense as a family car than this one. But I think I’d just swallow the extra expense and give up something else to cover the cost. Like one of my kid’s swimming lessons.

I suppose we need some sort of conclusion to this slightly gushing love-letter. I can think of no higher praise than to say the Cupra Formentor felt like my car after about ten minutes of driving. And I am definitely relieved I didn’t kerb one of its massive wheels.