Cupra Formentor

FIRST DRIVE Sporty crossover gains company's new family face

- Matt Robinson

THE Formentor was Cupra's first standalone model, in that it wasn't also sold as a less sporty version with SEAT badges on it. And you get the sense that this relatively young Spanish manufacturer is all the more proud of its coupé-SUV as a result. So much so that, as part of this facelift, it has given the model a new, punchier Audi S3-rivalling 329bhp flagship.

But it's a wide-ranging update for the Formentor family as a whole, which is centred on a redesign of the front end that clearly ties the car in with the newer Born and Tavascan EVs. There's a smoothed-off nose, framed by LED headlights that are made up of three triangles within a larger triangle motif. We have no doubt that Pythagoras would most heartily approve.

Around the back, those triple lamp clusters are repeated. But the bigger talking point will be the illuminated light strip across the bootlid, which now includes the Cupra logo. This is something seen on plenty of Volkswagen Group products, since it first appeared on the VW Touareg SUV, and it's as divisive as it is desirable.

Inside, there's been an attempt to tidy up and improve the previously maligned touchscreen infotainment system, so it's now presented on a 12.9-inch display and runs the fourth-generation MIB operating system. Many will still lament the fact that lots of functions are incorporated within the screen, including the climate controls, but in the main, it works in a more intuitive and acceptable fashion now, and it looks sharp, too. To go with this, the digital instrument cluster has also been spruced up with snazzy new graphics.