What is it?
The seven-year-old Macan is one of the most successful Porsches in history, which is quite a claim for a model that's made by a world-famous sports car company but isn’t even a sports car.
Porsche is extremely adroit at projecting its sporting image onto models of non-sporting layouts (its Porsche Taycan, for instance, is billed as “the sports car of luxury limousines”) and this is more of the same. The Porsche Macan, however, is especially valuable for the way it brings new buyers into the fold.
Statistics stress its value. Porsche has sold over 600,000 Macans in the past eight years, a better performance than even the most optimistic early expectations. Around 80% of those cars have been sold to owners new to Porsche. Better yet, 60% of the buyers are women: Porsche looks, image and quality are regularly cited as the decisive factors for female owners.
Given the success, it’s small wonder that Porsche has made sure its latest round of Macan changes are worthwhile but unthreatening – a shuffling of the pack rather than a change of deck. There are neat but fairly subtle body changes to the nose and tail, especially the underbody diffuser. The interior gets improvements, too, mainly to the centre console and its switchgear. The gearlever is shorter, and there’s now an analogue clock on top of the fascia. The suspension gets tweaks, notably to damper rates, that improve its agility and steering response, but Porsche continues to claim “a wide suspension bandwidth” for the Macan that allies comfort with sporty handling.
There are three models: the four-cylinder entry-level Macan, plus the S and GTS, which both use enhanced (and differently powered) versions of a 2.9-litre twin-turbo V6 engine. All have four-wheel drive and seven-speed paddle-shift gearboxes. Our test car, an S with a starting price of £53,500, looks the sensible choice, saving £5540 over the GTS – it’s a Porsche so you’ll want to spend that on options – while still offering near-supercar performance (a 161mph top speed and a 4.6sec 0-62mph sprint). The GTS is only 0.3sec quicker.
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Its the only car in a long time my lovely lady has asked "what is that" car. Maybe thats my "in" to get one. Hasnt shown interest in cars for a long time so quite a shock
Some would find it hard to accept that anything with four doors and an engine in the front is really a Porsche at all. Also, the old adage "The only water in a Porsche should be in the windscreen washer bottle" would also count against the Macan. But maybe that's all very old-fashioned now. More importantly, the Macan is shortly going to be replaced by a new gen car that's electric. So it seems completely pointless to buy the current model when the imminent new one is going to be so much better. In fact I don't even see the point in reviewing the current model. Like the Taycan, the new Macan will be awesome, so why bother with this obsolete Internal Combustion model?
HiPo, 'the four doors and an engine in the front' rhetoric is honestly only lazy journalism and bull#hit. I have been a Porsche owner, and yes fanboy since 1984. Yes the air cooled were iconic, yes the Mezger is legendary, but all those old school 911 guys understand that it was the Cayenne and the Boxster that saved the 911. Sure, Peter saved it in the early 80's but as you say the rest is very 'old-fashioned now'. The rest of your comment I struggle to agree with. The electric Macan is an unknown quantity and even if it was known as to whether that was superior to the current Macan is moot. I agree the Taycan is impressive, I have enjoyed a Taycan turbo for a day, but its not replacing a Panamera GTS for me. Finally, not calling you out but how many Porsche cars do you own or have owned, I ask because your post suggests none?
OK I'm a Porsache fan - my Boxster S is my 14th - and a Cropley fan - Hi Steve your turn to buy breakfast at RAC - but I just don't get this review. So: it's quiet and comfortable in day to day use but supercar like when you want to play. And that's a criticism? Just weird to me. Sounds like the ideal car and I'm going to look on line to see if I can buy one for my birthday (tomorrow).