The car buyer of the Future: Porsche Macan vs. Range Rover Evoque

As we know for a long time Porsche have been making sports cars. One of the most well known is the 911, which celebrated its fifty year anniversary last year. You would think a car selling for fifty years would be a company’s best-selling car – but no. Porsche’s best-selling car is actually the Cayenne, even though as far as I am concerned it is not exactly what one could call very good looking. I don’t think it’s a car people would lust after, but maybe Porsche’s new SUV will change that. The Macan is a cut down version of the Cayenne, and is far more desirable to me.

It comes as a diesel, diesel S, petrol, petrol S and turbo models. Unfortunately, unlike the Cayenne there are no V8 models. Instead they come with 3.0 litre V6 bi-turbo and single turbo engines. In Australia where I reside, prices range between $84,500 to $122,900. Each Macan comes with the 7 speed PDK gearbox as all new Porsches do. I like this car a lot and to give the car a bit more jazz they have given it the same steering wheel as the 918 hyper-car. The exterior and interior are exceptionally good as well.

However, I can’t let this car off the hook yet because like the A class Mercedes I wrote about a few months ago, the Macan has a direct rival. If you are a badge snob, the Range Rover for many years has been the SUV to go for and a few years ago they launched the Evoque, which is roughly the same size as the Macan. So let’s compare the two. In terms of pricing the Macan is in trouble because the entry level Macan is nearly double the price of an entry level Evoque and even the top of the range Evoque will still set you back less than the entry level Macan. I personally think the Macan is far better looking.

To compare both models in terms of power we will use The Macan diesel S and the Evoque TD4. This is where Macan wins out because it has 190kw, which is 80Kw more than the Evoque. The Macan also has much more torque (which you will need for towing stuff) because it has 580 Nm compared to the Range Rover’s 400 Nm. Now onto fuel economy, an important factor however wealthy you are. The Porsche beats the Range Rover again at 46.3 mpg whereas the Rover only does 45.6 mpg. Boot space is also important as well and this is where the Rover beats the Porsche, but not by much: it has 550 litres of boot space compared to the Porsche’s 500 litres.

So in my opinion it comes down to choice. They are both very desirable and very good cars. A Porsche sports car would normally be the more desirable car, however the Macan is not a sports car therefore it is competing in a market that Porsche are relatively new to; the SUV market. On the other hand the Macan is so good it can tackle the most desirable. But is that Porsche badge worth double the cash? That battle must be fought in the comments.