Cupra Terramar review

Cupra completes its model range with a big sibling to the Ateca

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Cupra describes its new car, the Cupra Terramar, as a sporty SUV with a bold and confident look and a new generation of hybrid engines. See the issue here? That could potentially describe a lot of new cars and, looking at it, it’s not immediately clear where it sits in Cupra’s range.

The Cupra Ateca and Seat Ateca are getting pretty old now, and compared with stuff like the Kia Sportage, Peugeot 3008 and Renault Austral, it’s pretty small and pokey. So the Terramar has all the latest powertrains and digital tech and is a size bigger to accommodate those growing families. Viewed another, less charitable way, it’s an angry-looking Volkswagen Tiguan. So the question is: is that something the new car market was missing?

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DESIGN & STYLING

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02 Cupra Terramar PHEV 2024 review front driving

To start with the basics, the Terramar uses the latest iteration of the MQB Evo platform, which means it’s powered by a range of familiar powertrains.

There are three options that don’t need plugging in: a 1.5-litre mild-hybrid four-cylinder with 148bhp driving the front wheels, and a four-wheel-drive 2.0-litre with either 201bhp or 262bhp.

Then there’s a 1.5-litre plug-in hybrid with either 201bhp or 268bhp. Both have the same big battery as the latest VW Golf and Tiguan, Skoda Superb etc, so they’re all rated for more than 70 miles on a charge, which is pretty impressive. They’re also capable of 50kW rapid charging.

This is all packaged in a body that, at 4.5m in length, is bigger than a Skoda Karoq and Seat/Cupra Ateca, but smaller than a Skoda Kodiaq, which is a seven-seat SUV. Like the facelifted Formentor and Leon, it uses Cupra’s new front light signature of three triangles, while at the rear, there’s a light bar that includes the Cupra badge.

As with all Seats and Cupras, the Terramar is named after a place in Spain, in this case the Autódromo de Sitges-Terramar, a historic racing oval near Barcelona.

INTERIOR

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08 Cupra Terramar PHEV 2024 review IV driving

If the exterior is slightly 'generic angry crossover', the interior is a bit more distinctive. The cockpit is fairly driver-oriented and has a fair few neat details, such as the copper-coloured accents and technical textiles made from recycled plastics. It feels inviting and high quality and gives you a fairly low driving position for something that is supposed to be an SUV. The sports seats are nicely supportive, with plenty of adjustment, and there’s a reasonable amount of storage.

The rear seats slide, recline and fold in a 40/20/40 pattern and offer a competitive amount of leg room for the class. The boot is less impressive, at 400 litres for the PHEVs and 508 litres for the other models, but it's decent enough and the floor remains flat, even in the PHEVs (you simply lose the lower setting for the variable-height boot floor).

But although the Terramar’s interior is practical enough in a traditional sense, everything is controlled through the centre screen. While Volkswagen and Skoda have recently overhauled the interface to be much more logical and user-friendly, Cupra’s feels stuck between generations. There are some shortcuts, but menu structures are confusing, and you need to trawl through too many of them to perform simple operations, such as putting the car into electric mode.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

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16 Cupra Terramar PHEV 2024 review engine

Cupra tries to profile itself as the sporty brand of the VW Group. It has managed that fairly well with the Cupra Born but it's much harder to do with a front-wheel-drive hybrid crossover, as the Terramar demonstrates. Fast petrol versions might prove to be different, but today we’ve got only the hybrid to inform our impressions.

The main culprit is the powertrain. An output of 268bhp would lead you to expect a quicker 0-62mph time than 7.3sec. Then again, it’s not exactly slow. Worse, though, is its character, which runs Toyota’s hybrids close for sucking out the remaining whisper of fun.

There’s a plethora of drive modes and a Sport mode for the gearbox and shifter paddles but, in the end, the car will ignore them and decide to do what it reckons is right. That might be to shut off the engine when you’re braking into a corner, or to loudly fire it up when you think you’re accelerating gently enough on electric power. It just keeps you at arm’s length from what the car is doing, making you very disinclined to drive this supposedly sporty car anything other than gently.

RIDE & HANDLING

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17 Cupra Terramar PHEV 2024 review front cornering

Driving gently is something the Terramar actually rather good at, at least in the posh spec of our test car with its adaptive dampers. As in other VW Group products, when you set them to the softest setting, it rides really nicely, dealing effortlessly with both rough and choppy services. Road noise is perhaps slightly elevated at motorway speeds, but that might have been the particular surface of the Danish motorway on our test route.

Driver assistance features are standard VW issue, so generally quite mature, and the annoying ones are easy to turn off with a couple of presses of the relevant hard keys on the steering wheel.

Handling, on the other hand, is pretty lacklustre for something that’s billed as a sporty SUV. Again, fast petrol versions might tell a different story, but this plug-in hybrid just feels heavy and very front-wheel drive. Mild understeer is the order of the day, with no hint of throttle-adjustability. Like other Cupras, it has pleasantly light steering that’s quick but not nervous, though it isn't bursting with feedback.

MPG & RUNNING COSTS

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01 Cupra Terramar PHEV 2024 review lead cornering

We don’t have UK pricing yet, or even confirmation of which powertrains will reach our shores. Most of them probably will, but we wouldn’t be surprised if the lower-powered 2.0-litre doesn’t make it.

We have been told that prices are expected to start at less than £40,000, and the performance E-Hybrid we’ve been driving starts at €56,310 (roughly £47,000) in Germany, so the price in the UK won’t be radically different. That’s a lot of money but not too dissimilar from what you’ll pay for a Tiguan or BMW X1.

VERDICT

19 Cupra Terramar PHEV 2024 review static beach

If the question is whether the Terramar achieves what Cupra promises in the brochure and press pack – namely, a sporty, distinctive SUV – then the answer is an emphatic no, at least for the plug-in hybrid. Lighter, simpler petrol versions could turn that around. If taking the plug-in route, we’d hold out for the lower-powered hybrid because you’ll save some money and lose very little in the way of real-world performance.

Judged purely on its merits, the Terramar has definite appeal. On the daily grind, it will be plenty comfortable and practical, and the plug-in hybrid has that very long electric range (and accompanying low company car tax). The Volkswagen Tiguan and Skoda Kodiaq have the same, of course, but you might very well prefer the look of the Cupra.

Illya Verpraet

Illya Verpraet Road Tester Autocar
Title: Road Tester

As part of Autocar’s road test team, Illya drives everything from superminis to supercars, and writes reviews, comparison tests, as well as the odd feature and news story. 

Much of his time is spent wrangling the data logger and wielding the tape measure to gather the data for Autocar’s eight-page road tests, which are the most rigorous in the business thanks to independent performance, fuel consumption and noise figures.