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The Formentor was the first Cupra model that wasn’t just a rebadged SEAT, and since it had its mid-life facelift it now bears even less of a resemblance to any SEAT model. The Formentor also stands out because it’s a car that’s quite difficult to pigeonhole - it’s sort of a halfway house between a hatchback and an SUV, having some styling cues from the latter but without the associated high driving position.

It’s like staying in a ritzy Airbnb - you get the glamour and feeling of owning a mansion, but without having to pay the gardener, worry about the pool leaking or heat the damn thing. The Formentor has an SUV look, with big pronounced wheel arches and increased ground clearance, but it’s not much more expensive than the Leon hatchback and it shouldn’t cost you much more to run either.

This coupe-hatchback-SUV mishmash means the Formentor makes a great alternative to other style-first crossovers - such as the Audi Q3 Sportback, Peugeot 408, Volkswagen T-Roc and BMW X2.

When it launched, the Cupra Formentor still shared a grille and front-end styling with SEAT cars. But after a facelift in 2024, the Formentor got a new look that brought it in line with the rest of the Cupra range. Cool triple-triangle LED daytime running lights flank a thrusting bonnet with no upper grille, and snarling air intakes below.

At the rear, there’s a full-width lightbar with an illuminated Cupra logo, while inside there’s the latest 12.9-inch infotainment screen set into a pretty minimalist dashboard filled with Cupra’s signature copper-coloured trim.

Considering the Cupra’s low roofline and hatchback proportions, it’s really spacious inside. There’s loads of room in the back seats - though the 450-litre boot isn’t quite as big as most alternatives, and if you opt for a plug-in hybrid Formentor you lose a significant chunk of that to battery storage.

The Formentor’s dashboard is familiar if you’ve sat in any recent Volkswagen Group product - it shares plenty with the VW Golf and Skoda Octavia, as well as the SEAT Leon. You get the latest Cupra touchscreen infotainment system, which is big, clear and responsive though not always the easiest to navigate.

Some of Cupra’s unique touches are good - the copper-coloured trim makes the dashboard more interesting, and the sports seats on top models are fantastic. Other quirks, like the button to turn off the traction control that’s the exact size, shape and position you’d expect of an engine stop/start button, are a bit less useful.

There’s a wide range of available engines, starting from a bog-standard 1.5-litre petrol and running through a series of hybrids to the very top 333hp 2.0-litre petrol, which comes with four-wheel drive. This is the same powertrain you get in a Volkswagen Golf R, and it’s fantastically powerful - but it doesn’t make the rest of the car so unforgiving that you wouldn’t want to drive it every day. It strikes an excellent balance.

It’s a shame, then, that the other engines aren’t quite so sparkling - the less powerful petrol feels sluggish, and the plug-in hybrids feel overly heavy. But all Formentors have nice direct steering and ride bumps in the road well, with a slightly sportier edge than a Q3 Sportback or Peugeot 408.

Why not head over to our Cupra Formentor deals page to make sure you’re getting the very best price possible? Or if you can check out our Cupra Formentor leasing deals, or find a used Cupra Formentor for sale. You can also get the latest deals on new Cupra models and used cars, and if you want to change your car completely, you can sell your car through carwow. Our trusted dealers will get you the best price for your car.

The Cupra Formentor range starts at more than £34,000, which seems steep - but it’s only about as much as a Volkswagen T-Roc when you fit the same 1.5-litre petrol engine and add a similar amount of standard equipment. Even the basic Formentor ‘V1’ comes with loads of kit, including all-round LEDs, a wireless phone charger, digital dashboard, adaptive cruise control and keyless entry.

Stepping up to V2 brings bigger alloy wheels, an electric tailgate, electric seats and a reversing camera, while V3 brings bigger alloys again plus a full leather interior.

VZ1 is a sportier trim level that, confusingly, offers most of the same equipment as V2 but is available exclusively with the more powerful engines. The same is true of the VZ2 and the V3, while the range-topping VZ3 adds in bucket seats and high-performance brakes. At this point you’re looking at more than £54,000, making it a significant investment - but the VZ1 with our preferred 333hp engine is only a couple of thousand pounds more than the equivalent VW Golf R.

Really fun to drive on a good road, but a Cupra Leon is better still

In town

The Cupra Formentor’s suspension has a firm, sporty edge to it, even on the more basic V1, V2 and V3 models that aren’t fully performance-focused. That means that you feel the bumps more than you would in a standard Volkswagen T-Roc or Audi Q3 Sportback. However, even the top-spec VZ models don’t fall into the trap of being uncomfortably stiff - they strike a good balance between sporty handling and just enough comfort for you to be happy driving them everyday.

Top-end models get adjustable suspension dampers, too, which allow you to choose over a dozen different levels of firmness. You can even take them a few clicks past the pre-determined ‘comfort’ setting, at which point the harsh thump you might expect from regular performance cars has totally disappeared.

Plug-in hybrid models are the nicest to drive round town as they can drive on pure electric - for a seriously long distance too, with over 60 miles on battery power easily achievable. By contrast, models fitted with the DSG automatic can feel a bit jerky and hesitant at low speeds, but they’re still pretty good for creeping through traffic.

On the motorway

Even the base-spec, 150hp Formentor doesn’t feel out of its depth on the motorway, and models over this only get quicker. The range-topping 333hp model is wonderfully fast, and only requires a light squeeze on the throttle to merge out of a short sliproad or to overtake with impunity.

The seats are comfortable and supportive, especially the sports seats on range-topping VZ3 cars, and there’s loads of adjustment for drivers of all sizes to really settle down on a long drive.

All models come with adaptive cruise control, and higher-up models also get Cupra’s equivalent of Travel Assist - an assisted driving system that can drive and steer the car on the motorway. It does this really smoothly and is a very reassuring system to use, though it does still require the driver’s full attention at all times.

The suspension is still firm though not uncomfortable on the motorway, but there’s rather a lot of road noise from the Formentor’s wide tyres.

On a twisty road

The Cupra Formentor comes into its own on a good country road. If you flick the driving mode to ‘Sport’ then you can corner really fast while the car stays absolutely flat. The gearbox becomes more eager, and the steering heavier.

While basic models are quite fun, this really comes to a head in the four-wheel drive, 333hp models, which feel like they have practically limitless grip levels. You can carry a tremendous amount of speed into bends, and the car stays tidy even if you’re being a bit overzealous.

It lacks some of the fun factor of lighter hot hatchbacks - a Honda Civic Type R gives you a greater feeling of connection to the road, for example. The biggest problem for the Formentor is that for slightly less money you can have the also-brilliant Cupra Leon Estate, which shares the same engine, gearbox and four-wheel drive system - but because it’s a lower, lighter car it feels more agile to drive.

Lots of legroom, but boot space and storage is only average at best

The Formentor feels more like a hatchback than it does an SUV to sit in - you step down to get into the seat rather than sliding in, though it’s slightly less of a slump than the Cupra Leon hatchback.

Once inside, you can set the seat to go pretty low, which suits the Formentor’s sporting brief to a T - but if you’re looking for an SUV because you want a high-up driving position, go elsewhere.

All models get sports seats with plenty of support but range-topping VZ4 cars get more huggy bucket seats. Even these aren’t too narrow for larger-framed drivers, though. Both kinds are very comfortable, and there’s loads of adjustment - they go really far back for very tall drivers, and the wheel adjusts for reach and rake.

Storage for smaller items is pretty much average. You get a wireless charging pad, cupholders and an under-armrest storage area in the centre console, plus door bins that can take a litre bottle of water and a decent glovebox. All very much par for the course.

Space in the back seats

Most sporty-looking SUVs with sloping rooflines compromise severely on rear passenger space, but that’s not the case with the Formentor. Because the roof stays flat all the way back past the rear passengers’ heads, there’s plenty of headroom inside, and legroom is really generous even for tall adults.

Four six-footers can certainly get comfortable enough for a long drive, though you won’t want to squeeze a third adult onto the narrow, hard centre rear seat unless you have to.

Rear passengers get a fold-down armrest, USB ports in the centre console and cupholders. However, the view out front is spoiled by the front sports seats, which have very bulky headrests that block your sight. At least the rear windows are a good size.

There are ISOFIX points to easily mount child seats in both outer rear seats, and the doors open just about wide enough to fit a really bulky child seat without contorting too much. There’s also ISOFIX on the front passenger seat which is ideal for when there’s just one person in the car and they want to keep an eye on the child.

Boot space

The Cupra Formentor has three different boot capacities. Basic petrol models - the 1.5-litre and 2.0-litre TFSI versions - have 450 litres of space. If you go for the range-topping four-wheel drive petrol, that drops to 420 litres.

The plug-in hybrid models, however, have a 345-litre boot as they need to accommodate the bulky battery pack under the floor.

Those figures compare reasonably well with alternatives - the Volkswagen T-Roc has a 445-litre boot, but the Peugeot 408 has 536 litres of space in its standard petrol model and 471 in the plug-in hybrid. You should still be able to chuck in a couple of big suitcases or a weekly shop for the family without too much drama, but note that the sharply sloping rear window does limit the size of square, bulky items you can carry.

Stylish cabin with cool copper accents, but the touchscreen isn’t the easiest to use

The Formentor’s interior is quite dark and moody, and even the lovely blue seat upholstery available on some models doesn’t change that too much. It’s more like a nightclub than it is a dingy dive bar, though, as the material choice is quite cool and it’s loaded with copper-coloured accents which are a Cupra signature.

There’s also a plethora of ambient lighting options, with a wide arc of an LED light strip framing the whole cabin.

Most of the interior fixtures are clearly inherited from other Volkswagen Group cars, and while this means they feel solid and nice to operate it also makes them feel a bit less special than you might hope for from a sporty sub-brand. Cupra’s made a few changes to the typical layout, which aren’t totally obvious - where you might expect to find an engine stop/start button by the gear lever, for example, you instead get the traction control switch.

The engine stop/start is on the steering wheel instead, where it’s easy to confuse with the driving mode selector.

The Formentor gets Cupra’s latest touchscreen infotainment system, a 12.9-inch display that sits high enough on the dashboard to be easy to reach without blocking your view of the road. The colourful graphics are a bit at odds with the moody interior ambiance, and the menus do take some learning - especially where they differ from the more logical setup utilised in most VW models.

Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto do come as standard, though, so you can easily bypass Cupra’s interface for one of your own.

There are touch-sensitive sliders underneath the screen, which control the volume and temperature - but they’re a little too easy to hit when you don’t mean to. Thank goodness Cupra fits proper buttons on the steering wheel, though, instead of the horrible touch-sensitive ones you get in a Volkswagen Golf R.

The Cupra Formentor range is pretty wide, and so running costs can vary massively. At the bottom of the tree, there’s a 1.5-litre, 150hp petrol with either manual or automatic gearboxes - the latter gets a mild hybrid system. You should see around 40mpg from either of these, driven carefully.

Above this there are two 2.0-litre petrol engines, both with automatic gearboxes. The 265hp model has front-wheel drive, and Cupra says it’ll do 36mpg. The 333hp model gets four-wheel drive and Cupra claims 32.3mpg. In reality, 30mpg is possible from both on a long motorway run - but if you try to make the most of all that performance, as you’ll undoubtedly want to, then you’ll soon see your fuel economy tumble through the 20s and possibly into the teens if you’re really hammering it.

There are also two plug-in hybrid models, one with 204hp and one with 272hp. Both of these claim truly fantastical fuel economy figures of over 600mpg, which is of course rubbish. However, with claimed electric range figures of over 70 miles (55-60 in the real world) you really can do a majority of your everyday driving on battery alone, saving your fuel for longer journeys. Your running costs will therefore be dependent on how much you plug in, and where.

These two plug-in hybrids are the pick of the range if you’re a company car buyer - thanks to their low CO2 emissions and long range, they fall into extremely low bands for Benefit-in-Kind tax.

Most of the Formentor range - including all of the plug-in hybrid and 2.0-litre petrol models - falls on the wrong side of £40,000, though, so you’re liable to pay the expensive car supplement on years two-six of annual road tax.

The Formentor scored a full five-star rating in Euro NCAP safety testing, with an impressive 93% score for adult occupant protection. That was back in 2021, so its rating isn’t as clear-cut as it could look, but you should be reassured that the Cupra Formentor will keep you safe in an accident.

All models get the mandated safety equipment - plus a relatively quick shortcut to turn the more annoying ones, but it’s nice that adaptive cruise control comes as standard on all cars too. Keyless entry is included too, with keyless start on all but the basic V1 model.

Cupra scored the highest of all of its sister Volkswagen Group brands in the 2024 Driver Power survey - it came 18th, versus 23rd for Skoda, 24th for SEAT, 27th for Audi and 29th for Volkswagen. That’s still not a desperately impressive result, however.

There’s little tech on the Formentor that isn’t used across dozens of other models from these brands, so there shouldn’t be any issues native to Cupra particularly. However, you shouldn’t expect the bulletproof reliability you’ll get from a Honda or Toyota.

Cupra’s warranty is the best in the group with five years and 90,000 miles of coverage - perhaps one reason customers are more satisfied with their cars.