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New four-cylinder variant squeezes into gap between base Macan and V6 S

There was a time after the 2014 launch of the Porsche Macan when the four-cylinder version was a special order only. You could have one if you really wanted one, but the six-cylinder cars were what Porsche really wanted to sell and what you would want anyway.

But times change. Fuel prices have gone up and most forms of car taxation have been revised upwards. Less really needs to be more.

The four-cylinder base Macan was taken off the secret menu a long time ago and has since established itself a commercially successful part of the range, particularly since the Macan was revised in 2018. Now it has been joined by a second four-pot option, the Macan T, in the first time that the T badge has been used on anything other than a sports car. In Porsche’s lexicon, T means Touring and is given to cars that offer the best possible driving experience without adding lots of extra power.

Porsche macan t 004 tracking front

To that end, the Macan T features a series of chassis tweaks but no extra grunt for the longitudinally mounted 2.0-litre turbo petrol engine, which retains outputs of 261bhp and 295lb ft from the base Macan (although the Sport Chrono pack is standard here, shaving 0.2sec off the 0-62mph time).

Those dynamic changes include lowering the steel springs by 15mm, and adding PASM adaptive dampers (air springs are optional). The front anti-roll bars are stiffer and the four-wheel drive and traction control systems have been retuned for greater rearward bias. Your £5000 premium over the standard Macan also includes a series of styling changes inside and out, among them 20in alloy wheels, a rear spoiler and some contrasting grey details for the bumpers.

The Macan T is designed to bridge the gap between the Macan and the Porsche Macan S, yet it still unsurprisingly feels much more like the former than the latter. The one thing it could probably actually do with is a bit more poke. Given that it’s getting on for two tonnes, that’s one big thing lacking here.

Porsche macan t 007 cabin

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The engine is from the Volkswagen Golf GTI, which probably isn’t what a Porsche owner wants to hear. It’s a good engine, no doubt, refined and responsive enough and a good match for the seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox, yet the engine is hardly raucous in the hatchback and it certainly isn’t in this larger, heavier SUV. It’s an impossibility,
 but Porsche should try the Honda Civic Type R’s engine if it really wanted to go down the strong and characterful hot-hatch engine route...

It has been a while since I drove a four-cylinder Macan, admittedly, yet my test route didn’t reveal a substantial difference between the standard car and the T, and
 it’s all largely as I remember it. The steering in particular retains lots of feel and feedback, while the ride-and-handling balance is well judged for a car of this type to involve you in the drive rather than excite you by it. There’s never the eureka moment you get when driving one of the six-cylinder Macans fitted with air springs that just hold the road so well and remove any notion that SUVs can’t handle.

Whisper it, but this seemingly ever-young and ever-popular car is also starting to feel a little old. That’s because it is: the ‘second-generation’ Macan of 2018 was really only a substantial refresh of the 2014 original, and this shared architecture wasn’t fresh out of the box then, either.
 The cabin architecture and design in particular feel quite staid, T or not with T, and Android Auto inexplicably remains absent.

Porsche macan t 019 static rear

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I understand the theory behind the positioning of the Macan T and why Porsche wants to add more sparkle to the Macan that remains the cheapest four-door or five-door Porsche to buy, run, own and tax. Yet this car doesn’t do enough to stand alone as a model in its own right, especially with no power upgrade to more easily distinguish it.

The T costs just £1000 less than the V6-powered Macan S,
 a night-and-day upgrade in terms of power, performance and the way that it involves and excites you as a driver. It would be far better offered as
 an optional package on the base Macan, bundling together some of the desirable bits that would else be options, like BMW does with M Sport trim. But then does the T badge really hold much allure to Macan buyers?

As it is, the inevitable ‘just pay the extra grand and buy the Macan S’ statements will be fired the way
 of the Macan T, and fairly so.

PRICES & SPECS

Mark Tisshaw

mark-tisshaw-autocar
Title: Editor

Mark is a journalist with more than a decade of top-level experience in the automotive industry. He first joined Autocar in 2009, having previously worked in local newspapers. He has held several roles at Autocar, including news editor, deputy editor, digital editor and his current position of editor, one he has held since 2017.

From this position he oversees all of Autocar’s content across the print magazine, autocar.co.uk website, social media, video, and podcast channels, as well as our recent launch, Autocar Business. Mark regularly interviews the very top global executives in the automotive industry, telling their stories and holding them to account, meeting them at shows and events around the world.

Mark is a Car of the Year juror, a prestigious annual award that Autocar is one of the main sponsors of. He has made media appearances on the likes of the BBC, and contributed to titles including What Car?Move Electric and Pistonheads, and has written a column for The Sun.

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Bimfan 12 August 2022

It probably costs no more for Porsche to make this than the base model, so why not charge £5k more for very little more. That's the Porsche way (and they are not the only ones).

I bet it's really hard to order a base model any more.

jason_recliner 12 August 2022
Very few people buying a VW today remember or care when Porsche was a car, not a VW badge.
Boris9119 12 August 2022

jason, your absolutely right, very few people buying a VW today remember or care when Porsche was a car, not a VW badge, but unlike them, you never reached up far enough from under your rock to be able to tell the difference?

si73 12 August 2022
Jason has a point, Porsche feels like another VW badge with these SUVs, why does it need them when it could just have sports cars and let the VW/Audi group brand as a whole run the mundane stuff, people malign the 924 as it had a VW engine, yet it was fully developed by Porsche and that VW engine had a completely different head and no shareable components with its Van or Audi originator, yet now Porsches based on VW group offerings are revered. Funny old world.
Porsche to me are sports cars, I'd love a 911, always have and always will, but have had a 924 and that's likely the only Porsche sports car I will have unfortunately.
lukeski 13 August 2022

Hi Si73, i guess the answer is that from VAG perspective, (who ultimately control Porsche) they get to sell a bucket load of very profitable Porshce SUV's so why wouldn't they, okay some cannibalise VAG sales,  some people will have a Q5 not a Macan, but not many will have a Tiguan. E even if they do the Porsche unit is more profitable. i was actually very anti Porsche going in to SUV's from a business perspective, i thought it would ruin the Porsche brand image, clearly VAG and Porsche knew a lot better than me as if anything they seemed to have benefitted from it. 'Hey look we can make even an SUV sporty, think how good are sports cars are.' Just checked and only 20% of Porsche sales in 2021 were sports cars, maybe 30% if you include the Taycan.

So i guess to put it more simply, Porsche are doing what is most porfitable for the VAG group, not what sports car enthusiasts want.

... and for me it would be a 928!

si73 13 August 2022
lukeski wrote:

Hi Si73, i guess the answer is that from VAG perspective, (who ultimately control Porsche) they get to sell a bucket load of very profitable Porshce SUV's so why wouldn't they, okay some cannibalise VAG sales,  some people will have a Q5 not a Macan, but not many will have a Tiguan. E even if they do the Porsche unit is more profitable. i was actually very anti Porsche going in to SUV's from a business perspective, i thought it would ruin the Porsche brand image, clearly VAG and Porsche knew a lot better than me as if anything they seemed to have benefitted from it. 'Hey look we can make even an SUV sporty, think how good are sports cars are.' Just checked and only 20% of Porsche sales in 2021 were sports cars, maybe 30% if you include the Taycan.

So i guess to put it more simply, Porsche are doing what is most porfitable for the VAG group, not what sports car enthusiasts want.

... and for me it would be a 928!

You are totally right of course, from a business perspective it makes sense, but it also shows how times have changed, that a 2.0 VW engined Porsche SUV is more widely accepted now than a 2.0 Audi engined Porsche 2+2 transaxle coupe was back in the 70s/80s.
928s are stunning, even if they couldn't replace the 911 as originally thought or planned.

xxxx 15 August 2022
si73 wrote:

Jason has a point, Porsche feels like another VW badge with these SUVs, why does it need them when it could just have sports cars .

Because if it build sports cars with uniue engines and gearboxes it'll lose money day in day out, why do think AM, Ferrari, Lotus, Alfa etc are going down this route.

xxxx 13 August 2022

Jason, that doesn't even make sense. . why would people buying a VW Golf care about when Porsche was a car...

If you going to insult a VAG car buyer get it right next time.

Peter Cavellini 12 August 2022

 Yep, not a big enough saving to justify buying Macan T , could ask, why is Porsche bothering ?

Boris9119 12 August 2022

Peter, easy answer, at least here in USA. You can walk into a Porsche dealership (pre chain supply issues) and take your pick from any number of 4cyl Macans. GTS, Turbo and S were order only as all allocations were spoken for. In effect pre Ukraine/Supply Chain Issues, Porsche was struggling to shift 4cyl Macans, hence the marketing solution to offer a 'T' to shift 'base' units at inflated prices. You can see the same with Cayenne 'Platinum' Editions. This Macan 'T' is a regrettable decision by Porsche, as the original 'T' designation unless I am corrected was the 73 Carrera RS, the 'touring' or 'T' differentiating spec, not a considerably lesser powertrain?