2021 Porsche Macan GTS review: Petrol’s fond farewell

This ‘new’ Macan is actually the old Macan with some minor cosmetic upgrades, by far the most important being a more modern look to the interior, with far fewer buttons. Yet if you read the brochure you’ll see that its engine has been given another 60bhp – surely that is significant?

Well, yes and no. Call it by its Macan GTS name, it’s a genuinely big deal. But actually what you’re looking at here is a car priced and powered like the previous Macan Turbo – dropped from the range – wearing GTS badging.

How so? Because the next Macan Turbo is over a year away and, like the Taycan Turbo, won’t be turbocharged at all. It won’t even have an engine, but electric motors. So this facelift of a car that’s already been facelifted (and was itself based on the platform of the previous generation Audi Q5 which launched over a dozen years ago) is what is required to tide the Macan over until the genuinely all-new electric Macan arrives. After which the two cars will be sold side by side presumably for as long as demand for the petrol-powered model remains. A base-spec Macan with 20bhp extra is included in the range but the Macan S is dropped.

Despite aged underpinnings, it’s instructive to realise it’s still the best car to drive in its category. Though it is heavy, nothing else like it is more involving or rewarding. In sales terms it is the most successful Porsche of all time, and there will be plenty more of those before the electric Macan calls time on its reign.

2021 Porsche Macan GTS statistics

Price £64,770
Engine 2.9 litres, six cylinders, turbocharged, petrol
Power 434bhp
Torque 405lb ft
Weight 1960kg
Power to weight 221bhp per tonne
Transmission Seven-speed automatic, four-wheel drive
0-60mph 4.3sec
Top speed 169mph
Economy 25.0mpg
CO₂ 255g/km
Verdict Still a class-leading experience.