Leon, Terramar, Formentor: Meet the rebel trio from Cupra
The Leon, Terramar and Formentor sound like they should be comic book villains, but do they drive like heroes?
[BARCELONA] Leon, Terramar and Formentor sound like they might be comic book villains (OK, Leon sounds like an accountant), but they’re actually three cars that Cupra is about to unleash in Singapore. They hit the market on Jul 31, and are the brand’s first petrol-powered offerings since Porsche Holding set up Cupra Centre Singapore in March.
To shed light on what they’re like, Cupra summoned me to its home base, a foreboding, boxy stronghold just outside sun-drenched Barcelona, where they brew up fast cars with intriguing colour names like Dark Void and Enceladus.
If you have little concept of what Cupra does – and let’s face it, most people have never heard of the Volkswagen-owned brand – the incoming cars should make things a lot clearer.
For a start, you could think of the Leon as a VW Golf’s spicy Spanish cousin, the one who turns up for family dinners in black denim, swears liberally and gives off slight “may soon appear on Crimewatch” vibes.
The two are mechanically similar, but Cupra’s styling hallmarks give the Leon more attitude than the friendly Golf: a shark nose, sharp LED lights with triangle motifs, an illuminated logo smack in the middle of the rear hatch, and a body draped in distinctly desaturated colours or matt paint. Its stance and crisp lines make it look like it’s crouched for a knife fight.
It packs a nicer interior than its German cousin, too. There’s copper-toned trim here and there, sporty textures everywhere, and bucket seats that hold you snugly when you inevitably sling it around corners.
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Like the other Cupras, it has a slick 12.9-inch infotainment screen with an illuminated climate slider, and offers upholstery made from recycled materials.
That sets the tone for what to expect from the brand, and so does the car’s peppiness. Headed our way is a 1.5-litre eTSI version with 150 horsepower (hp), which feels nice and energetic in a car this size.
But the Leon is lovely to drive more for its chassis than its engine. It’s delightfully eager to turn in, yet planted enough to hit a bump mid-corner and carry on without flinching. Unlike Singapore-market Golfs, it gets multi-link rear suspension, which helps it glide over battered tarmac.
If you’re in the mood for a hatchback to brighten your life, the Leon deserves a spot on your shopping list. But if circumstances demand something bigger, the Terramar is a couple of sizes up.
Cupra describes it as a “new hero of a new era”, but it’s more Clark Kent than Superman, at least in 150 hp form. That simply isn’t a lot for a mid-size sport utility vehicle (SUV), and anyway, the test car’s suspension felt soft enough to make it wallowy through corners, so I wouldn’t buy it for behind-the-wheel giggles.
Instead, the Terramar is a merchant of style. It feels (forgive me, Volkswagen) like a Tiguan that went to Spain, got a tan and picked up some fashion sense, along with a sudden interest in sustainability, if the bucket seats made from upcycled marine plastics are anything to go by.
As the brand’s newest model, the Terramar exudes flamboyance because Jorge Diez, Cupra’s head of design, set out to emphasise its Spanish provenance.
“The Latin spirit, the Barcelona spirit, is quite different to the north of Europe,” he told The Business Times. “We are more expressive, we are more emotional, and the culture of our society is reflected in the car.”
Ironically, the Terramar impressed me more for the Germanic quality of its interior than its Mediterranean charm, with its soft-touch plastics and solid build. Still, it has sculptural surfaces and enough of a sense of theatre inside to make it feel premium in a way that’s different from the grim Teutonic norm.
Given that it borrows its underpinnings from the hugely practical Tiguan, the Terramar has a smaller boot than you might expect, but it’s roomy inside and family friendly enough overall that I expect it to become Cupra’s bestseller here.
But the one I really wanted to take home with me was the Formentor VZ, the most boisterous of the lot. It’s a strange breed, with a slender upper half atop a bulkier, SUV-like base, but its long bonnet and muscular rear haunches signal its potency. With all-wheel drive and a growling 333 hp engine pinched from the mighty Golf R, it’s a seriously quick car, clobbering 100 kmh in just 4.8 seconds.
Cupra let the media have three laps in it at Circuit Parcmotor Castelloli, a hilly track with dusty corners where we could all savour the engine’s strong top-end pull.
Despite its hellraising engine (or maybe because of it), the Formentor actually exudes a kind of calm, even when its tyres start to squeal as you approach the limits of their grip. The chassis feels neutral and set up for gentle understeer, the brakes feel like they could take a beating all day, and the car’s tail doesn’t wiggle even if you provoke it by lifting off the accelerator mid-corner.
The Formentor does have a Drift Mode if you want to exit corners with smoking rear tyres, but I didn’t try out this party trick because spinning off into the gravel is a bad look for a motoring journalist (plus I only noticed the feature after my track session was over).
Paradoxically, the Formentor VZ is larger and more practical than the Golf R whose bits it shares, which goes to show that Cupra is aiming for a rebellious image, but still understands the need to have room for groceries.
Which is to say that the Leon, Terramar and Formentor aren’t really the villains they sound like. But like the best comic book baddies, they can certainly be counted on to make things more interesting.
Cupra Leon 1.5 eTSI Engine 1,498 cc, turbocharged in-line four Power 150 hp at 5,000 to 6,000 rpm Torque 250 Nm from 1,500 to 3,500 rpm Gearbox 7-speed twin-clutch automatic 0-100 km/h 8.7 seconds Top speed 215 km/h Fuel efficiency 5.5 L/100 km (estimated) Agent Cupra Centre Singapore Price To be announced Available Jul 31
Cupra Terramar 1.5 eTSI Engine 1,498 cc, turbocharged in-line four Power 150 hp at 5,000 to 6,000 rpm Torque 250 Nm from 1,500 to 3,500 rpm Gearbox 7-speed twin-clutch automatic 0-100 km/h 9.3 seconds Top speed 204 km/h Fuel efficiency 5.7 L/100 km (estimated) Agent Cupra Centre Singapore Price To be announced Available Jul 31
Cupra Formentor VZ 2.0 TSI 4Drive Engine 1,984 cc, turbocharged in-line four Power 333 hp at 5,600 to 6,500 rpm Torque 420 Nm from 2,100 to 5,500 rpm Gearbox 7-speed twin-clutch automatic 0-100 km/h 4.8 seconds Top speed 250 km/h (limited) Fuel efficiency 9.1 L/100 km (estimated) Agent Cupra Centre Singapore Price To be announced Available Jul 31
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