Review | CUPRA Born
In 1969, a film was released called Easy Rider. It was about two blokes who enjoyed riding their Harley Davidson chopper motorcycles on the open roads from Los Angeles to New Orleans, have various adventures along the way.
The soundtrack featured a brilliant track called ‘Born to be Wild’ by a band called Steppenwolf. Hands up if you’ve heard of them? Ah, thought so. But I am older than you obviously.
Anyway, I’ve had it thumping out of the speakers on my CUPRA Born and it ties in with the character of this car.
It’s also the first electric car that I’ve hopped into on a Sunday morning and taken for a spin, purely because I wanted to. It really is that good.
So what is it?
Under the skin this is really a Volkswagen ID.3. However, CUPRA, which is the sporting arm of SEAT, has the knack of taking a ‘standard’ car and bringing it to life. Okay, it has the benefit of dipping into the VW/Audi/SKODA parts bin to find something interesting, but you still need to make the end result work.
First of all, the CUPRA Born looks better than the ID.3 because it has a more aggressive appearance and fatter tyres. The ride height has been lowered slightly and the steering is sharper. I think it looks really cool.
There are two power options, with a third lower-powered version in the works, both of which feed a single motor which drives the rear wheels. You can select either a 202bhp 58kWh battery or a 240bhp 77kWh battery which gives the CUPRA Born terrific performance and decent range. CUPRA reckon you’ll get 340 miles before running out of juice with the bigger battery. If you can find one of the increasing number of rapid chargers, you’ll hit an 80 per cent charge in around half an hour. You can also manage a 0-60mph time of around 6.6 seconds. As with nearly all electric cars, it feels extremely quick off the mark for the simple reason that there are no gears to change and there’s 100 per cent power as soon as you floor the throttle. It darts around town and dodges traffic with ease.
You can tell that the suspension has been lowered because the ride can feel a tad firm at slower speeds, but get moving on the quicker stuff and the pay-off is that the CUPRA Born handles really well. It’s not quite in hot hatch territory but it’s not far off. It’s a shame that it doesn’t feel a bit more involved. However, on the plus side, it means it ticks most boxes when it comes to finding the middle ground between overly firm racer and sloppy cruiser.
Trim names can often be a bit confusing with various manufacturers, but CUPRA has gone to the other extreme with the Born. You have three versions to choose from - V1, V2 and, erm, oh yes, V3. The cheapest Born kicks off at £36,475. Fancy the more powerful one? Add £5500.
Every Born comes with a handsome 12-inch touchscreen and a 5.3-inch instrument cluster. The sat nav is responsive but even though the temperature can be adjusted by external buttons, doing anything else is a bit fiddly, which is not ideal when you’re on the move. There’s also a rearview camera.
If you want heated seats, dark tinted windows, 19-inch alloys and a head-up display, move up to the V2 trim.
The seats are supportive but comfy and there’s plenty of room for adults in the rear. There’s a sense of quality about the interior trims too. The CUPRA badge has a copper colour which is replicated in areas around the car. I wasn’t sure about it to start with, but our test car was the one you see here in Aurora Blue and it’s really grown on me.
The difference between the two power outputs might appear to be significant at first glance, but in truth, it doesn’t make much difference in day to day motoring and even though the predicted range of the lower power model drops to 262 miles, that will still be ample for the majority of you reading this. I’d save your money and avoid the temptation of the more powerful Born.
This is the first all-electric CUPRA. It’s a thoroughly enjoyable and competent car and certainly bodes well for future electric cars from the Spanish manufacturer.
Words: Graham Courtney
Pictures: CUPRA
