Oh I feel like tumble-dried crap. Like I spent the night in a rock tumbler. I had a mild cold before going on the trip so I was already not 100% but now hoo boy do I feel like something a dog has abandoned in the yard. That said, I’m excited to be here, and I don’t want to seem like an ingrate; this trip to Stuttgart and then to Goodwood, which I will get to by driving with David in his diesel minivan across France, is going to be fantastic, and I hope to get all kinds of exciting content for you. Will David and I make the ferry in time? Will we succumb to French road madness – folie de la route – and attempt to murder one another with foie gras? Who knows?
So at this moment I’m here waiting for my last flight to take me from Frankfurt to Stuttgart, and I did happen to see an interesting modern car on display in the airport. You know how sometimes carmakers will show off their stuff in airports, in case you can somehow buy a car in the duty free shop? Can you? Or is it just perfume and booze?
Well, anyway, this time it was interesting because the car was a Cupra, which makes it the first one of those I’ve seen in person. Cupra is SEAT’s – the Volkswagen-owned Spanish carmaker that once made license-built Fiats – performance division, and I have to say the car does look pretty striking.
We never got SEATs in America, and it’s a marque notoriously tricky to Google because, you know, car seats, but they’ve sort of been VW’s performance-oriented brand for a while. We’ve written about SEAT here before, specifically about their very clever rear door handles made out of glass:
Now the Cupra name comes from a shortened portmanteau of “cup racing,” and the first SEAT to bear the Cupra designation was the 1996 Seat Ibiza GTI 16V Cupra:
Now, VW has spun off Cupra into its own marque, and, as I said, this is the first time I’ve seen one.
The “Formentor” name is kind of funny; it sounds sinister, but it literally just means “wheat,” and there’s an island near Ibiza called Formentera. So, if you’re not gluten tolerant, maybe be careful when looking at this car.
The Formentor is a hybrid, medium-ish SUV, with a 1.5-liter inline four and an electric motor, and it makes anywhere from 150 to 272 hp, depending on configuration. It seems to be able to go 51 kilometers (32 miles) on electric power only, which isn’t bad, and the faster ones can get to 60 in 7.2 seconds.
They would sell for about $45,000 in US freedom-dollars if they sold it in the States, which they won’t. [Ed note: Au contraire mon frère! Jason’s sleepy and forgot that we shared a report that Cupra may, in fact, be coming to the United States – MH]
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There’s some good, deep, multi-layer, high-depth taillight design going on here, too. I’d like to investigate that more!
But, right now? I’m exhausted. My teeth hurt. I ache all over, and I just want to get into this weird European bed that’s actually two beds shoved together, like they love to do here, for some reason.
We’ll have more exciting stuff to come! Now don’t wake me!
Oui Oui. Im in France (Paris) for the week too! Just got here from England to catch some British Grand Prix action. I rented a Cupra in Mallorca a few years back and I must say its looks were better than the driving. It wasnt bad per-se, but I was glad to get back to my Mazda at home in the States. Interior quality was mediocre and didnt hold up too well to the rigors of renting, and I had a hell of a time with the infotainment (my impression could have been spoiled because the previous renter must have been German). Ive seen quite a few of them here in France mixed with all the Renaults and electric Benzs.
Jason Torchinsky, Simile King
If you guys drive close to Grenoble in France you’re most welcome to make a stop and have diner at my place.
It’d be the occasion to geek out about aerodynamics and for me to talk your ear off about my Datsun.
Formentera: also not just one, but TWO albums by Metric.
My only frame of reference is “Formentera Lady”, an unusually gentle track for early-70s King Crimson.
That’s a funny coincidence – saw the same Cupra at the same airport on my way back to Spain. I have not seen one of these in the wild.
Well Jason if you ever want to drive a Cupra you’re welcome to try mine, but you’ll need to come to Australia first!
Also the fastest version of the formentor has the i5 from the rs3 so can do the 0-100 dash in the 3 sec range iirc!!
Look american car designers, those taillights are completely red and presumably use colored LEDs for the amber. Your precious design doesn’t have to have an extra color in it.
So what is your fucking excuse still making red ones in the US? or even removing the maber on global cars to put red stateside?
FMVSS 108 mandates that the minimum size for the amber turn signal indicators be four square inches (one bulb or 1,000 bulbs illuminating at same time). It doesn’t allow the sequential indicators.
As long as the FMVSS 108 doesn’t mandate the separate amber turn signal indicators, why should the manufacturers bother to do that in the US, though? It would take the act of Congress to change this as it did for the “adaptive driving beams” in 2022.
Any rule-making proposal takes forever and is easily demolished by the manufacturers who invoke the idiotic 1972 federal law, demanding that any proposal or changes would have significant benefit to the safety and be cost effective. That is why airbags took a very long time to be mandated (of course, through the act of Congress) despite the fact that airbags failed the criteria set by 1972 federal law by wide margin. That law also killed the 5-mph battle ram bumpers as they often “compromise” the handling of the vehicles doomed to carry the albatross on their both ends.
The only way is to repeal the entire FMVSS and replace it with the international WP.29 regulations that have served many countries very well. Even Australia and Japan with their stringent regulations have harmonised theirs with the international regulations, making the vehicles cheaper to engineer and manufacture for more markets. United States promised to do that in the 1990s through World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations, but “tut-tut, look at the weather. It does look like it’s about to rain…” Canada was this close in discarding its CMVSS for WP.29 in 2000, but the domestic manufacturers threatened to shut down the entire manufacturing plants in Canada and move the manufacturing elsewhere. So, Canada rescinded its plans.
Torch and Tracy road trip? Oh, this will be good!
Wait, aren’t you founding fathers of the Autopian supposed to travel separately, like Pres and VP?
I eagerly await your reportage on David’s timesaving gavage sous la douche.
May his liver be both tasty and safe.
I wish buying a car in duty-free was an effective way around the chicken-tax…
So, is this your Cold Start, or the start of your cold for today?
It’s not bad, but I wish the trend of four horizontally-stretched, vertically-stacked butts (/faces) would go away already.
Jason, there is a Superb car in the airport in Prague…
Every once in a blue moon I see a SEAT driving around US roads, turns out they’ve been sold in Mexico for a while and sometimes they make it North.
Buried into the lede is the fact that the doctors have cleared Jason for long distance travel.
Good luck, we’re all counting on you.