Cupra Formentor VZ5 - long-term review

Cupra’s been on form of late. Cast your eyes over these digital pages and you’ll be hard pressed to find much in our reviews section that drops below an 8/10. And whilst it’s no secret that Cupra owes much of its underlying engineering prowess to parent company VW (upon whose MQB or MEB platforms the majority of its range are based), it’s fair to say the execution of this Hispano-Germanic relationship has delivered some tidy cars of late, and a worldwide shortage of copper paint.

Back in 2021, little more than three years since Cupra had shorn itself of Seat sub-brand connotations, Audi’s board clearly agreed, as they left the keys to the door marked '2.5-litre TFSI Stock Room' unlocked, turned a blind eye to the Cupra-branded lorry in the car park, and went home for the night. Cupra subsequently stuffed the RS3’s (and RSQ3’s and TT RS’s) 385bhp five-cylinder in the Formentor, patted themselves on the back, and then forgot to ship any to the UK.

Fast forward a few years and the Formentor’s sharp first facelift saw the reappointment of the VZ5 nameplate (VZ for Veloz in Spanish, meaning 'fast') and confirmation of right-hand-drive models for UK shores – hurrah. Cupra says there are just 4,000 being built globally, with only 400 of those coming to the UK. If individuality is your thing, that makes it rarer than a Porsche 718 GT4 RS.

Lesser Formentors are a more familiar and frequent sight on UK roads though – more so than the Leon Estate that’s just departed the Top Gear Garage – and so the crossover fad that bemoans so many purists continues to tickle the general public’s fancy and goes some way to explaining why the VZ5 appears here, and not in the lesser-spotted Leon.

So is this just a halo branding exercise? Almost certainly. But one with a celebrated (and much-awarded) five-cylinder that’s arguably the last of a dying breed before Euro 7 regulations take hold. It therefore deserves our attention, a tip of the hat to Cupra for being so bold, and on paper at least, the VZ5 talks the talk.

This one gets Century Bronze Matte paint (not a wrap, thank you very much - £1,395) and a panoramic sunroof (£1,015), but there’s little else to option, as the VZ5’s standard spec list is more densely packed than a budget airline’s overhead lockers. Price as tested is a not inconsequential £66,905. That brings 20in alloys, wider 255-section tyres under VZ5-specific wide arches, delicious 'CUP' bucket seats, less delicious diagonally stacked copper tailpipes, a VZ5-specific Akebono braking system with six-pot calipers up front (in copper, naturally), a top-down camera and more aggressive carbon fibre splitters front and rear.

More importantly, the VZ5 delivers 56 more horsepower over the 328bhp VZ3, an electro-hydraulic torque-splitting rear axle also liberated from the RS3 (yes, the one with drift mode) and an extra cylinder’s worth of tuneful warble. A £65k base might sound punchy – spec an RS3 Sportback with the equivalent bucket seats and at the time of writing you’re splitting hairs between the two. Time to find out if the fast Formentor can walk the walk, then.