Porsche’s Base Macan Is A Mix Of Cayenne And Audi A4
You can get a base Macan for under fifty grand, but do you really want it?
Nick Murray is an unequivocally enthusiastic Porsche guy. He's had a few different models, including a current 991.2 generation Carrera 4S. When he took his car in to the dealership for a few minor bits of work, and to swap his winter tires for summer rubber, they gave him a loaner base 2.0 Turbo Macan. Without any options (like that really exists...), the Macan will run you a bill of only just over forty-eight thousand dollars. The car Nick received, with a few option packages tacked on, stickered at about sixty-grand. That's not a lot of dosh for a Macan that's pretty posh.
Having driven a few different versions of the Macan, we can tell you that we genuinely appreciate the car's driving manners. While the base car is the only one we have not yet driven, that suspension system isn't appreciably changed from a Macan S, which is to say that it probably handles quite well for a CUV. Nick, in this video, even goes so far as to mention the Macan is a better driving experience than its Audi Q5 chassis mate sibling. Somehow Porsche has worked some very serious magic on the Macan to extract an uncharacteristic-of-the-segment driving dynamic. It's actually quite fun to drive.
Even in the least powerful 2.0T engine model, the Macan manages enough shove to sprint from zero to sixty in just six seconds. It wasn't all that long ago that a six-second zero-to-sixty time was reserved for the most powerful of sports cars. Throw a rapid fire PDK gearbox and all-wheel-drive behind a powerful turbocharged four-pot engine, however, and you can make anything move from a standstill to cruising speed quicker than it takes to read this sentence. For something with comfortable seating for five adults, Porsche's least expensive model is still pretty damn good.
