Our Cars: Cupra Formentor VZ5

I’d like to think I’m too young to be a cynical old git, but when I see quotes like ‘the ultimate expression of combustion performance for car enthusiasts…’ parped out in a press release, I do wonder.

So said the president of Cupra upon the VZ5’s original launch in 2021, words subsequently recycled for the launch of the facelift car I now run as a long termer. And that cynical part of me? Wondering whether the ‘ultimate expression’ for enthusiasts might have been more ultimately expressed by putting the VZ5’s trump card – its rather splendid five-banger motor – in the lower and lighter Leon estate instead.

But of course we all know why it wasn’t. Sales volumes of the Leon estate are a fraction of those of the Formentor, the Leon wouldn’t be able to command the same lofty price, and it would stomp rather too close to the toes of the vehicle that donated the engine in the first place. The fact that Cupra had to knock 10bhp from the EA855 Evo for its Formentor installation tells you that VW Group stablemate Audi was already feeling pretty insecure about the position of the RS3.