Porsche Macan review: A sub $100k class act

After a week together, I must admit I could see the attraction, and how tempting it would be to park a Porsche, a new one no less, in your driveway for under $100K.

The new base model Porsche Macan is far and away the cheapest way to get into a Porsche at just $84,800.

In theory, it would be unwise for a brand to go out of its way to annoy, and even horrify, its most enthusiastic fans. And yet that’s exactly what Porsche did, way back in 2002, when it unveiled its first and, frankly, most disturbing SUV, the original Cayenne.

It’s hard to imagine today, when more than 70 per cent of all Porsches sold are what’s best described as soft roaders or faux-wheel drives, but there was a time when the Stuttgart-based brand was all about beauty and purity.

The only cars you could find in a Porsche showroom were sylphlike sex machines, predominantly the world’s most recognisable and wondrous sports car, the 911, which it has been churning out since 1975.

2021 Porsche 911 GT3

Porsche had made the brave move to go down market and let slightly poorer people into its hallowed halls with the admittedly still brilliant Boxster. But it was not enough.

The fact is, as Porsche executives have explained to me ever since, was that sports cars alone — and the relatively small global sales they could garner — were not going to be enough to keep the company solvent. It needed something big, mass market and madly popular, and it needed to point its pert nose at where the market was going, and to snort up as many of those buyers as possible.

As I recall, I was far from the only Porsche fan who was audibly appalled by what this previously beloved company was doing. It was as if Victoria’s Secret had decided to start selling bloomers, old granny nightgowns and chastity belts, or Rolex marketing daggy Dad digital watches.

The question, of course, is whether a Macan is actually any good to drive. Is it worthy of the badge? Or is it just a bland branding exercise that should be shoved into the sea?

Personally, despite it being notionally my job to road test new cars, I refused to drive a Cayenne for more than five years. Porsche employees accused me of blockheadedness or wilful idiocy, and pointed out that the huge sums the company was making out of selling Cayennes allowed the company to keep making the 911s that I love.

And then, just when I couldn’t have been any more annoyed about how successful the Cayenne was, nor how right Porsche seemed to have been about building it (at one stage, the company claimed to be the most profitable car brand in the world), they went and did it again, launching the even more mainstream, affordable and outrageously successful mid-sized SUV, the Macan, in 2014.

The Porsche Macan interior feels classy, modern and, Porsche-like

By this stage, the undeniably clever designers at Porsche had arguably even worked out how to make a soft-roader soccer-mum vehicle like the Macan look attractive (and the new one is even better looking, at least from behind, although the headlights still leave me slightly cold). And, as the company no doubt predicted, it went on to be even more outrageously successful, quickly becoming the biggest-selling vehicle in any Porsche dealership in Australia (in 2020, they sold more than 2000 Macans, 1352 Cayennes and just over 400 of the 911).

Personally, of course, I still sigh when I see one — and they are everywhere in my city — as opposed to the little gasp of happiness I get when I spy a 911, of any vintage, on the road.

The question, of course, is whether a Macan is actually any good to drive. Is it worthy of the badge? Or is it just a bland branding exercise that should be shoved into the sea?

The more powerful Macan GTS has a list price of $129,800

Well, I can tell you that first impressions of the new base model Macan — a definite price temptation and far and away the cheapest way to get into a Porsche at just $84,800 — were not great, but that was because I literally stepped into it out of the seat of a 911 GT3, arguably one of the greatest and most exciting cars the company has ever built.

The immediate sense was that I was simply sitting far too high over the road to be in a Porsche, but then I realised that the driver before me must have been Danny DeVito, and that he’d raised the seat to its maximum high-chair setting. Still, even at its lowest, the Macan is too high for me, but no doubt just right for its core customers.

We then spent a few days getting to know one another and, much as I hate to admit it, the Macan’s inherent Porsche-ness began to creep through my defences, and force me to fall in love with it.

No, the base Macan is not crazily fast, as it has to make do with a mere four-cylinder turbocharged engine of just 2.0 litres, making 195kW and 400Nm, but it’s the way it makes that power, and makes the most of it, that is properly intoxicating. Put it in Sport mode and it feels urgent, keen and even borderline exciting. It doesn’t sound like a proper Porsche (which must have six cylinders), but it still sounds distantly desirable.

The Macan achieves 100km/h in 6.2 seconds

Change the gears yourself, with the familiarly classy paddle shifters behind the wheel, and it’s even a bit involving, and you will hit 100km/h in a sharpish 6.2 seconds. The interior also feels classy, modern and, yes, Porsche-like, and the way it rides and handles is similarly excellent, and very much a class above its competitors.

What defines any Porsche, however, at least for me, is its steering, and the superlative way it connects you to the road and lifts driving beyond being something you merely do, to something you enjoy.

Again, the Macan suffered from being driven back to back from the raw genius of the GT3, but there’s no denying that, even blindfolded, you’d know this was a Porsche. The goodness is still there, it’s just a softer version of the world’s best steering. But it’s still the world’s best.

After a week together, I must admit I could see the attraction, and how tempting it would be to park a Porsche, a new one no less, in your driveway for under $100K.

In practical terms, with its decent boot and reasonable back seat, it would even make the perfect family car for a father of two like me. Sadly, my inability to admit that I am, or ever was, wrong about something means that I’ll not be saying so. Or not publicly anyway.