Porsche Macan 2019 delivers SUV practicality with Porsche's performance

Porsche's improved Macan continues to be an SUV with the soul - and the engineering - or a sportscar. You might expect it to be fast and family-friendly. More of a surprise is that it's rewarding and, with the right spec, very nearly race-ready in its responses. Yet it'll comfortably take you off road, deal with the school run and cruise down to Chamonix. It's very special.

Background
With the Macan, Porsche was always determined to stretch design boundaries and create the ultimate multi-tasker. A car as ready for a circuit as it would be for a skiing trip, classy enough for the streets of Monte Carlo, soundly sensible on the school run, quietly capable on the rough stuff and potentially manic around Monza. The company's certainly well-placed to create such a thing, claiming the whole 'sporting all-wheel drive car' concept as its own invention. Back in 1900, Ferdinand Porsche designed the Lohner-Porsche racing model with its four electric wheelhub motors. By 1947, the brand was going further, developing a supercharged 12 cylinder 'Type 360' Cisitalia Grand Prix racer that introduced the concept of full four-wheel drive.

What it all led to was the Cayenne large SUV that turned the company's fortunes around earlier this century. And from that to this Macan, a smaller SUV designed to sell alongside it, first launched back in 2014. This revised version, launched in mid-2018, looks smarter, ditches diesel and improves its technology.

Driving Experience
The big news with this revised model is that the Macan range no longer offers a diesel, this in line with the brand's current policy of deleting apparently planet-polluting diesel from all its models. Unfortunately, (for the time being at least), the company hasn't offered customers a Plug-in hybrid powertrain instead. So buyers must, initially anyway, choose from three petrol powerplants. Most will opt for the entry-level 2.0-litre turbo unit which offers 245hp, gets to 62mph in 6.7s and reaches 139mph flat out. If that really isn't fast enough for you, then there's a mid-range Macan S model which uses the 3.0 V6 unit from the larger Cayenne, here with 351hp. Or there's the top Macan Turbo, which borrows its 2.9-litre twin turbo V6 from the Audi R S4, but here uses it in 434hp form. All variants get a revised chassis with newly developed tyres, a package that should put this model even further ahead of its rivals from a dynamic perspective.

All models come with a seven-speed PDK dual-clutch gearbox, with a Sport button to sharpen shift times, throttle response and steering. Four-wheel drive is standard on all cars, although in normal road conditions, 100% of torque is directed to the rear axle. Should momentary slip be detected, a clutch pack locks, which can then send up to 100 per cent of torque to the front axle. There's also a torque vectoring system, while a torque vectoring rear differential is an option. There is a dedicated off-road mode, which optimises the torque split and gearbox shift points to better optimise grip and torque when it gets really slippery. Standard steel springs with passive dampers are standard on the S models, with adaptive dampers an option, while the Turbo gets full air suspension.

Design and Build
The styling of this revised Macan has only been very lightly evolved. The smarter three-part, three-dimensional LED light strip across the rear of the car is probably the biggest change and represents a typical element of the Porsche design DNA. The sleeker brake lights with their four-point cues are another immediately recognisable embodiment of the brand identity. LED technology is incorporated into the re-styled main headlight design, while the Porsche Dynamic Light System Plus (PDLS Plus) option can be used to control light distribution adaptively. The wheel styles available range from 18-inches in diameter as standard to 21-inches as an option.

Otherwise, things are much as before. Even though this is Porsche's baby SUV, there's plenty of space inside. The Macan is built on a heavily modified version of the Audi Q5's MLB chassis. It's 4,681mm long and 1,923mm wide, which means it occupies a bigger footprint than its Audi cousin, but the wheelbase is a little smaller, meaning the Audi has a slight edge when it comes to rear seat space. There's a decent 500-litres of room in the boot which extends to 1,500-litres when the rear seats are folded.

Market and Model
Prices for the all-petrol range open at just over £46,000, which gets you the entry-level 2.0-litre turbo 245hp model. If you want more power, you can also talk to your dealer about the 3.0 V6 Macan S and the 2.9-litre V6 twin turbo Turbo version. The range of standard features has been expanded to include LED main headlights and the new PCM infotainment system, with online navigation and Connect Plus.

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