SEAT’s stand-alone brand Cupra celebrates its third year of existence by unveiling its most powerful road car to date. The Formentor sporty crossover, developed from the ground up to be a Cupra model, borrows the turbocharged 2.5-liter engine that Audi uses for various compact cars with RS badges, including the RS Q3 and TT RS.
The inline-five unit delivers 385 horsepower (287 kilowatts) and 480 Newton-meters (354 pound-feet) of torque in the new Formentor VZ5. For the sake of comparison, the engine generates the same torque in the RS Q3 and its Sportback brother, but it has a bit more horsepower in the Audis, with 394 hp (294 kW). As with Ingolstadt’s spicy crossover, the new hot Cupra comes standard with four-wheel drive and a dual-clutch, seven-speed automatic transmission.
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The new peak of the Formentor series completes the 0 to 62 mph (100 km / h) in 4.2 seconds, which actually makes it three tenths of a second faster than an RS Q3. Both are electronically limited to 155 km / h (250 km / h). Full horsepower starts at 5,700 rpm, while maximum torque is available from 2,250 rpm.
It sits 10 millimeters (0.4 inches) closer to the road compared to the Formentor’s 306 horsepower custom 20-inch wheels with larger brakes hiding behind. There are 18 cm Akebono brake flaps with six pistons in copper that match the copper machined alloy wheels. The stacked four-wheel-drive exhaust points à la Lexus F models are also exclusive to the VZ5 and flank a more aggressive rear distributor.
Production will be limited to only 7,000 units and all will be built in a left-hand construction. Cupra will open the order books in the last quarter of the year, with prices yet to be announced. In the local market in Spain, the Formentor VZ 2.0 TSI starts with the 306 hp engine at € 44,920, so the VZ5 can reach the € 60,000 mark.
Despite what is likely to be a huge price loss, it will still not overlap with the Audi RS Q3 which is available from € 73,790 in España. The limited availability of the Formentor VZ5 means that the Volkswagen Group is not too worried about the Cupra model that will cause sales of the RS Q3 to cannibalize.