Cupra Born VZ review

Cupra uses some old-school tricks to create a new-age hot hatch  Press presentations for new cars are normally given by someone from marketing with lots of graphs and charts about trim levels and why it’s better than rival X at Y. But the presentation for the new Cupra Born VZ was one to really sit up and pay attention.It was given by ex-World Touring Car Championship driver turned performance car development engineer Jordi Gene. It was delivered by a proper enthusiast with serious credentials and was all about brake pedal feel, suspension changes, drivetrain improvements; our kind of language, and a car to be taken seriously. The Born VZ is the hot hatch version of the standard Born hatchback, which is already the electric car we rate the highest for handling appeal. It recently won our best sub-£40,000 electric car test and last year beat a more specialist EV field where handling ability was placed at a premium.If you mentioned the idea of an electric hot hatch even twelve months ago to the more hardened motoring enthusiast, their reaction likely would have been one of scepticism.Where hot hatches excel in dynamics, light-weight performance and handling, electric cars often do not, and there aren’t many car companies that have attempted a pure driver’s EV. Thankfully, it seems like more effort is being placed into introducing more EVs with a driver-focused, performance edge. The Cupra Born VZ is the latest such car to join proceedings in the UK, following the warmed-up Abarth 500e, the MG 4 XPower and the more powerful Hyundai Ioniq 5 N.The positioning of the Born VZ is quite different to other electric hot hatches: at one end the Abarth 500e is stiff and raucous while at the other the Ioniq 5 N is hi-tech and terrifically adjustable. The Born VZ splits the difference quite nicely: it doesn’t make a play on electric technology or even too much of the fact of being electric; its makers simply wanted to make a hot hatch that happens to be electric, so there’s no fake sounds or too much electrical interference.