Porsche Macan Turbo, motoring review: Is this the world's most fabulous school-run machine?
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Your support makes all the difference.PRICE From £59,300 (£67,836 as tested)
ENGINE CAPACITY V6 twin turbo
POWER OUTPUT (BHP@RPM) 400 @ 6,000
TOP SPEED (MPH) 165
FUEL ECONOMY (MPG) 31.7
CO2 EMISSIONS (G/KM) 208
This is the new Macan Turbo from Porsche. It will cost you £59,300, has a V6 engine and will cross small rivers with ease before topping out at 165mph. Believe it or not though, this is a car designed for the city, the school run and the daily commute.
Porsche won't admit that, of course, but this "baby SUV" is set to take on the Range Rover Evoque as the fastest, flashiest and most fabulous school-run machine on earth.
You won't have seen many of them on Britain's roads yet. Instead, head to the affluent parts of New York, Dubai or Hong Kong and you'll spot them everywhere. In fact, if you're part of the global one per cent, the chances are that you will have put your name down for one. Be warned, though: the waiting list is so long that your cossetted offspring may have left their fashionable nursery and headed to big school before you get your hands on one.
Normally, I'd test a Porsche with a spirited run out of town, before reporting back that its vast engine makes it far too fast for you to, you know, actually use. But the child-friendly Macan calls for something different; a car seat fitting test and a hands-and-knees battle to remove squashed raisins from its shag pile carpet to be precise.
Thankfully, last week I had a pliant niece and nephew in tow to test the Macan's Isofix-friendly leather. Unfortunately for the Porsche valet team, though, my tiny relatives took the test a little too seriously, with crumbly biscuits and melting ice creams accumulating on the back seats with alarming speed. The leather may be wipe-clean, but the sumptuous luxury of the Macan's interior translates to all sort of dastardly nooks and crannies into which little fingers can stuff gunge. The result was an embarrassed uncle, cleaning frantically before the chap from Porsche came to pick it up.
This then, is the sort of car you spend more time worrying about keeping clean than driving, which forces the question: what is the use of a V6 engine, delightfully raspy exhaust note and a slick sports gearbox when your biggest challenge is stopping a toddler going into meltdown on the M40? This is a fantastic car, and far more pleasurable to drive than a host of BMW and Audi sporty SUVs. It's just that I don't really see the point of it. Expect to see hundreds of them in Knightsbridge soon.
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