UP FOR THE CUP(some text hidden)

By Jonathan Crouch

Ten Second Review word count: 27

The CUPRA performance brand's first bespoke model was this one, the Formentor, a lively Spanish take on the mid-sized performance SUV concept. It's now been usefully improved.

Background word count: 179

When in 2018, Spanish maker SEAT announced that CUPRA would become a stand-alone brand, we were first served up merely a performance variant of the Iberian maker's Ateca Crossover. This Formentor model in contrast, launched in 2021, was a completely new design - well almost anyway. It did share a platform and some mechanicals with the Ateca, but everything else felt much more bespoke. Now, SEAT wants CUPRA to mean more, creating, in its words, 'a range of unique, sophisticated performance models designed to captivate car enthusiasts.' The idea here, says the company, is 'to create cars not founded in nostalgia but rooted in the present'. Presumably, that's meant to be a dig at directly competing brands like Alfa Romeo and MINI, both of which produce products this Formentor model sets out to directly target: namely, quick, charismatic petrol-powered mid-sized SUVs, cars that offer a lot of what you get in, say, a Porsche Macan for a great deal less money. Is that what we've got here, with this revised Formentor model launched in Summer 2024? Let's find out.