UTILITY AND POWER
Upgraded model blends crossover functionality, sports car ability and serious looks
ESTORIL, PORTUGAL I have a recurring thought, a somewhat dystopian view of the future considering I’m an unabashed gearhead. This vision takes place 15 or 20 years from now, and in it I am sitting on my front steps waiting for my young grandson to drop by on his way home from school. He comes bounding up the steps, sits next to me, and breathlessly says:
“Hey, Gramps. Guess what? I saw a Porsche called the ninehundred-and-eleven today. It was a sports car! I didn’t know Porsche made sports cars!”
Ridiculous thought, eh? Porsche makes great sports cars — the 911, Boxster and Cayman. It makes terrific sport sedans as well, the Panamera and now the fully electric Taycan. But the reason it can produce these lovely — and in at least one case, iconic — high-performance products is because the German automaker also builds sport utes — the well regarded Macan and Cayenne.
The compact Macan is Porsche’s bestselling model in Canada, and together with the larger Cayenne, the two accounted for 64 per cent of Canadian Porsche sales last year.
And for the 2020 model year, Porsche provides yet another reason to get your Speed Racer jollies in the form of a crossover — a “distinctly sporty” and reworked Macan GTS with a more powerful engine, more performance goodies, an upgraded chassis and additional content and amenities.
Slotted between the S and the Turbo, the GTS comes to the party with a 2.9-litre twin-turbo V-6. In the GTS, the double-boosted engine delivers 375 horsepower and 383 pound-feet of torque — 15 more ponies than in the previous version. For a 1,910-kilogram crossover, it’s more than sufficiently speedy when you stomp on the gas pedal, and with the newly adapted PDK dual-clutch transmission and the optional Sport Chrono package, the GTS will accelerate from standstill to 100 km/h in 4.7 seconds.
We explored small villages and their narrow avenues around the seaside town of Cascais, before taking to the hills and then dropping down to hug the coastline.
Which meant little of the Macan’s prodigious performance potential got serious review.
It was the Macan’s parking sensors doing most of the work for a good portion of the drive, frenetic warnings to avoid creasing the fenders against the beat-up bumpers of tired-looking cars poking out at odd angles on barely onelane roads.
Simply put, there’s no soft side to the GTS. Everything about the feel of the crossover — steering, ride, brakes, handling — is elevated. The standard air suspension includes a retuned damping control system. The chassis has also been lowered by 25 millimetres for greater lateral dynamics. Though 20-inch tires are standard, our tester was wearing optional P265/45R21 Michelin Latitude Sport 3 rubber, as well as being fitted with Porsche’s pricey (but nearly indestructible) ceramic brakes. Standard brakes are large, grey cast iron rotors measuring 360 by 36 mm up front, and 330 by 22 at the back.
The GTS not only acts the part, it looks the part. The Sport Design package’s new trim gives the Macan a more serious demeanour. The front fascia and rear section are characterized by black-painted elements, such as the diffuser and the tailpipes of the standard sports exhaust system. The LED headlights, with Porsche Dynamic Light System and the three-dimensional rear lights (with an LED light bar connecting the two) are also darkened.
Inside, the GTS sticks to the Macan’s form-follows-function principle, combining a logically laid-out instrument cluster and a multi-function sport steering wheel with a button-laden centre console and some elegant touches, such as brushed aluminum trim bits and Alcantara on the armrests and certain other panels.
As disturbing as the thought might be to today’s greying enthusiasts, future generations could look upon the Macan with the same fondness we have for the 911 or the Boxster/cayman duo, which represent Porsche at its purest. The Macan — especially the new GTS — is a well-engineered marriage of crossover functionality and sports car ability from a company that has proven it knows how to achieve both.
The new GTS will arrive in dealerships this summer. Pricing will start at $77,100.