While Seat is preparing to wind down its car-making activities, Cupra, the brand Seat spawned, is heading in the other direction and is about to launch even more products. One of those is the Tavascan, a more macho take on VW’s ID.4 electric SUV, and the other is the SUV you see here, the Terramar, which Cupra previewed at its Unstoppable Impulse event two years ago and says will be their last new vehicle with combustion power.
The Terramar takes its name from the
Autódromo de Sitges-Terramar historic racing circuit in Barcelona, Spain, but
it takes its engineering lead from Wolfsburg, Germany. The SUV is Cupra’s
answer to the VW Tiguan and shares its MQB platform and running gear with the
VW. Audi’s next Q3 will also be part of that mix and the Cupra will be built at
Audi’s Gyor plant in Hungary.
Not many Terramar buyers will be
immediately alerted to the connection when they walk into the showroom. The 4.5
m Cupra SUV has a stronger, less curvy look than the Tiguan and a
far more aggressive face with a wide grille, pointy headlights, and a pair of
muscular creases in the hood that a designer might have used to signify the
presence of a V6 in the old days.
But the Terramar will in fact get the same
1.5-liter and 2.0-liter inline four-cylinder engines as the Tiguan, some with
mild-hybrid tech and some with full PHEV assistance. The VW offers 201 hp and 268 hp versions of the eHybrid plug-ins, each fitted with a
19.7 kWh battery, and if Cupra sticks with the same power pack we should be
looking at a similar 100 km of electric range. All-wheel drive will
be optional, but there’ll be no choice regarding transmissions: a seven-speed
dual-clutch gearbox will be compulsory.
