The Cupra Formentor VZ5 Will Have An Inline-Five Borrowed From Audi

It seems Audi is a little sniffy about other VW Group brands using its turbocharged inline-five TFSI engine. Although niche sports car companies like Donkervoort and KTM have been allowed to borrow the unit, it’s yet to be used by any of Ingolstadt’s cohorts. Reportedly, Audi vetoed VW’s plans to use the five-pot in the Golf R.

For whatever reason, though, Seat offshoot Cupra has been given the warble-tastic lump to use in the Formentor crossover. We knew this was coming thanks to some Nurburgring spy shots that emerged last year, but Cupra has since confirmed the car’s existence for the first time and given it a name: VZ5.

Cupra says the Formentor VZ5 will “harness the power of the five-cylinder petrol,” and although no further engine details are given, we can be certain it’ll share the same specs as the RS Q3, TT RS and RS3. That means 2.5 litres of displacement, a single twin-scroll turbocharger, 395bhp, and 354lb ft of torque.

As first seen in the spy shots and now a teaser video (below), the Formentor VZ5 will also get a quirky, Lexus F-style diagonally stacked quad exhaust arrangement. The system will likely have to adopt a noise-sapping particulate filter, so the soundtrack won’t be quite as raucous as we’d like. In time, there’ll no doubt be aftermarket solutions.

The car will be revealed in full on 22 February, and we’re expecting the first customer cars to be delivered in the final quarter of 2021. To give you an idea of how much it might cost, the Formentor range starts at a reasonable £27,395, although the 306bhp 2.0-litre version we tested late last year was knocking on the door of £40,000.