The big test:
performance crossovers
Looking to add a little spice to life ferrying the kids around town? These three should have you covered
WORDS TOM FORD
PHOTOGRAPHY MARK RICCIONI
FORD PUMA ST
£29,710
CUPRA FORMENTOR VZ2
£39,830
HYUNDAI KONA N
£35,395
Performance crossovers start life fully equipped with disadvantages, if you think about it. A centre of gravity migrated vertically means that they’ll always be fighting to keep themselves level – taller bodies require more control, pitch and yaw manifest earlier and more aggressively. Aerodynamics are wounded, economy hurt and they’ll never quite manage to be as much fun as something that hasn’t started out weighed down with compromise. And yet they keep popping up Audi has the SQ2, VW has the T-Roc R, and there are the three cars we have here. So people like them, even if they don’t make much actual sense.
The Hyundai Kona N, for instance, makes no sense with absolute clarity. You’ll think this after approximately 50m because the ride, even in its softest setting, is ‘sporty’ verging on ‘awful’. Put it in ‘N’ mode and it finds ridges and depressions that other cars ignore, bucks and tramlines like someone’s wedged wooden blocks in the springs and injected concrete into the dampers. If you accelerate with even mild aggression, the front axle tramps spectacularly on anything other than glasssmooth roads, the steering wheel tugging around as it fights a losing battle with the torque desperately trying to exert itself through the e-diff and suddenly very lonely front axle. And then you get grip, the 276bhp 2.0-litre four-pot nicked from the i30N hatch surfs boost and the Kona jerks itself towards the horizon like... well, like an i30N with a taller ride height and shorter wheelbase.