Porsche Macan Mk1 review

The Macan range starts at £53,400 for the entry level model and rises to £71,700 for the top-spec GTS version. Of course, this is still a Porsche, so the price is only the start, before you begin to tick the options boxes.

And the company can be a bit stingy with the standard kit: heated seats now come included, but you have to pay extra for seatback storage pockets. And you can also spend plenty on chassis tech upgrades to tweak the handling (see the Macan T). You certainly don’t need to, we’d argue (see also the Macan T). Stick with the base 2.0 and its lighter front end would make it the most enticing to drive of the lot if the engine didn’t sound so uncouth at high revs.

As ever, don’t expect that speccing the high-end Burmester hi-fi (£3,695) or dubiously-hued seatbelts, air vent surrounds, dial faces or body colour-matched alloys will retain your ‘investment’ come resale time. There’s a reason most of the Macans you see prowling the school run are monochrome examples on big wheels with sunroofs and dark leather.

What options should I go for?

Among the more tempting options are the various handling aids, like the £773 Sport Chrono pack (a stopwatch, Sport mode and a mode-switching dial for ramping up engine and gearbox response) and £2,046 air suspension with PASM (Porsche loves an acronym, that one’s for Porsche Active Suspension Management), which, if anything, makes the Macan handle too well.

There’s so little sensation of roll, such mind-pulverising cornering speeds and such clever hiding of weight transfer, it’s likely to give you a headache from contemplating the maths involved.

Oh, and if the delectable Carmine Red and Miami Blue (£1,842) hues aren’t to your taste, there are plenty of boring blacks and greys that Porsche will spray your Macan with instead. But go on, be brave. You’re buying the best all-round sporting SUV in the world, why shy away from that?