Cupra Formentor Abt review – a 365bhp crossover for Mercedes-AMG A45 S money
It’s farewell to the original Cupra Formentor with an Abt-tuned run-out package. It’s a quietly excellent car; just a shame about the price...
This is not the new facelifted Cupra Formentor. Rather, it’s the last of the old Formentors, a run-out model limited to 160 cars in the UK. As the Abt badging inside and out suggests, its upgrades have been selected and tested by Abt Sportsline, the German motorsport and tuning specialist that has partnered with SEAT and Cupra on various projects over the years, including the current Cupra Formula E team.
A run-out model can be a very good thing indeed, and we rather liked the last Abt-badged Cupra, the all-wheel-drive, estate-bodied SEAT Leon Cupra R ST Abt of 2020 (see evo 271). Technically, this car’s specification is an aftermarket option: the Abt pack was supplied and fitted to VZ3-spec Formentors at dealers post-registration. Said pack includes lowered suspension, a 59bhp power bump and different wheels among other Abt-fettled upgrades, plus a number of cherry-picked Cupra options. All 160 UK cars fitted with the Abt pack also have an Akrapovič exhaust system, carbon-backed Sabelt bucket seats and uprated Brembo brakes. Open the bonnet and you can see a second, Abt-labelled ECU sitting on top of the battery. Together with the freer-flowing exhaust, it takes power from the VW Group’s long-lived four-cylinder turbo EA888 engine to 365bhp, which is a lot from 2 litres. Since it’s a manufacturer-approved upgrade package, it’s covered by a five-year warranty.
Despite the quad exhaust exits’ alluring perforated finish, the Formentor is still not a particularly sonorous car on the move. It’s quick enough, though, and the seven-speed dual-clutch transmission is responsive. In the Abt edition, extension mouldings like plastic elephant ears are grafted onto the back of the shift paddles, which makes them easier to reach if you’re adjusting your grip on the wheel mid-corner.
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And the Abt Formentor is an easy car to get in a flow with. There’s plenty of front-end grip, and the all-wheel-drive system can be set to be a little more rear-biased in Sport mode. If you’re really pressing on, or begin to take liberties, the ultimate handling balance is toward safe understeer, but it’s a car with very positive responses overall. The power steering is a little overly light in its standard setting but gains more weight – although not much more feel, sadly – in Sport and Cupra modes.
It feels more akin to a hot hatch to drive than a high-riding crossover. Speaking of which, the Abt edition rides 35mm lower than the standard Formentor on bespoke suspension springs. These give it a relatively firm ride. As with the regular car (and other VW Group performance models such as the Golf GTI/R and Cupra Leon), you can choose from no fewer than 15(!) levels for the adaptive dampers, by dragging or tapping your finger along a sliding scale on the touchscreen. It’s possible to soften the dampers considerably for bumpier back-roads, but because the springs are stiff it feels like there’s a slight mismatch between the soft damping and firm springs if you do. It feels more cohesive if you increase the stiffness of the dampers to match the springs, but that gives the Formentor a ride quality that’s a little too tough for many British B-roads.
The driver’s sun visor visibly tremors and vibrates as the suspension patters its way over lumpy surfaces. Perhaps the Abt springs’ settings have been determined on smooth German roads. Despite this particular misgiving, I find the Abt Formentor a really enjoyable car to drive, with a positive but predictable overall balance. It’s a car you can get into a rhythm with, enabling you to cover ground quickly and calmly.
When you’re not being infuriated by some of the original Formentor’s known bugbears, that is: the laggy touchscreen (which froze at one point during our test, and frequently lost connection with my phone – this has been improved for the post-facelift model); the lack of back-lighting for the volume and air-con controls at night (also solved for the facelift); the wireless charging pad’s proclivity to make your phone alarmingly hot, and the weirdly shaped cupholders that get in the way of the centre armrest.
It’s a reasonably practical car, though, with plenty of room in the rear cabin, and although its design is now starting to age (and has been superseded by the facelifted Formentor), it’s still one of the few truly attractive coupe-style crossovers; arguably the only one, to these eyes. From the driver’s seat, the view out over the bonnet and its ridge lines is distinctive, and the continuous line from dash into doors is illuminated with ambient lighting, which doubles as a blind-spot warning system, turning yellow when there’s an unseen car on your shoulder. The configurable ambient lighting changes colour with the drive modes: angry red in Sport and Cupra, brightening and dimming in the latter mode as you accelerate and decelerate (which is frankly a little distracting at night).
The lovely Sabelt ‘Cup’ seats, with their satin-finish carbonfibre shell-backs and leather trim, look great and are comfier than their racer-ish appearance suggests, with decent support over a long journey. Abt badging on the starter button is a reminder you’re in a non-standard Cupra, and the logo is repeated on the bootlid and the bespoke 20-inch alloys, fitted with 245/35 Hankooks. The wheels’ slim spokes show off the brakes, which look the part with ventilated and drilled front discs and big Brembo calipers, and stop the Formentor nicely. Lighter-colour trim for the wheelarch extensions is a slightly odd choice but overall it’s a cohesive-looking car: clearly breathed-on but still an OEM product rather than an aftermarket special.
One might even go so far as to say the Formentor Abt is a bit of a hidden gem – or it would be if it were more affordable. A Formentor VZ3 fitted with the £7200 Abt Performance pack is officially listed at a very stiff £67,185: a price point at which a quietly appealing car quickly loses a great deal of its attraction. A used M3 Touring is now £70,000, incidently. It’s certainly the best iteration of the original Formentor, but so it should be at that price. Leaving cost out of the equation, this is a genuinely enjoyable, practical performance car with convincing appeal.
