Porsche Macan Review Hands-on

Unlike other big Porsches, such as the Panamera and Cayenne, you don’t feel conspicuous driving the Macan through town, and you can weave the nippy Macan through traffic much more easily. Each model benefits from Porsche’s superb PDK dual-clutch gearbox, which means you get seven forward gears, snappy gear changes (especially with Sport or Sport Plus modes activated) in manual mode and sensible gear selections when in auto mode. We’d expect to see a PDK gearbox on the S and Turbo models, but we’re very pleased to see it’s a standard feature of the Diesel model too.

Whichever Macan you choose, you’ll find that it has excellent handling, grip and stopping power. The Panamera and Cayenne both have excellent handling for cars of their size, but you do feel the weight of them in corners, to different degrees. That isn’t the case with Macan, which felt light and nimble. Likewise, some crossovers have had good handling and a saloon car feel, but none have had the sports car feel of the Macan. It’s also worth noting that all Macans are four-wheel drive.

We only had the Diesel for a few hours, so we couldn’t see how economical it is, but Porsche’s official figures for the Diesel place it at 44.8mpg combined. Fuel consumption figures for the Turbo and S are 30.7mpg and 31mpg respectively.

INTERIOR

The Macan’s interior is typical Porsche, which means comfortable seats (the Macan uses the same seats as the Cayenne), a neat, tidy and well-ordered dashboard and one of the best instrument panels you’ll find. The centre console is a tech-fiend’s dream, laden as it is with a plethora of buttons that control everything from the dual-zone climate system to the comfort level of the ride and Sport mode. It may look confusing initially, but you’ll soon learn what all the buttons do.

As is common with Porsche models, there’s a rev counter smack bang in the middle of the instrument panel, with a digital speedometer inset. To the right is a graphical information display, and you can select the type of information you want to see. You can, for instance, set it to show the navigation map, trip data or fuel consumption figures, among others. This display is a god-send, as it means you don’t have to take your eyes off the road to fiddle about with the Macan’s touchscreen.

There’s plenty of room for both the front passenger and driver, and plenty of room for drinks, CDs, phones and USB drives. Sadly, there isn’t as much space for rear passengers as we’d like, even behind a 5ft 8in driver, so adults in the rear may complain on long journeys. There is, however, a massive amount of space in the boot, with 500 litres of space available with the rear seats up and 1,500 litres available with the rear seats down. Even better, you’ll have no trouble getting bulky items in the back of the Macan thanks to the rear hatch’s square shape. Whether you need to load suitcases or flight cases, you’ll have no problem getting gear in the back of the Macan.

There’s not as much room in the rear of the Macan as we expected