Porsche's Macan Turbo Is Back with 434 HP and Fancy New Brakes

0 0 Editorial Team September 1, 2019 Edit this post

By Alexander Stoklosa, Car and Driver

The Porsche Macan Turbo rejoins the Macan lineup for 2020 after a one-year hiatus.

It has a new, smaller engine that is up 34 horsepower over the one it replaces.

Look for the new Macan Turbo to appear in dealerships before the end of 2019, priced starting just under $85,000.

When Porsche lightly updated its Macan crossover last year, information on the range-topping Turbo model was conspicuously missing. Turns out, that's because the newest version of the mighty Turbo was being reserved for the 2020 model year—when it rejoins the base Macan and the S after a brief hiatus.

Welcome back, Turbo.

As before, the Turbo is, um, turbocharged—to be fair, so is every other Macan—but it has swapped its twin-turbocharged 3.6-liter V-6 for a new twin-turbo 2.9-liter V-6 shared with versions of the larger Cayenne SUV and the Panamera. The new V-6 makes 434 horsepower, or 34 more than the old 3.6-liter engine; its output falls just six ponies shy of the 440 horsepower in the outgoing Macan Turbo with the optional Performance package.

Either way, that's a lot of cheese, and Porsche claims that it's enough to punt the all-wheel-drive Macan Turbo to 60 mph 0.3 second quicker than before. That places the regular Turbo at 4.3 seconds, according to Porsche, and the version equipped with the Sport Chrono package at 4.1. Per usual, those figures are likely very conservative. A 2015 Macan Turbo we tested hit 60 mph in 4.2 seconds, while the 440-hp Performance package model (remember, the one with only 6 hp more than this '20 Turbo) did the deed in 3.7 seconds. We can possibly expect the new Turbo to break into the 3.0-second space. Oh, and top speed is up 3 mph, for those who care that their compact luxury crossover can do 167 mph.

Porsche has added quite a lot of standard equipment to the Turbo as well. The brand's new Surface Coated Brakes (PSCB) are included (the rotors have a special layer of tungsten carbide that reduces brake dust), as is a sport exhaust system. An adaptive suspension, 20-inch wheels, Turbo-specific front bumper, LED headlights, 18-way power sport seats, Bose audio system, and a faux-suede headliner are all part of the Turbo mix. (The Turbo also receives the same new full-width taillights as the 2019 Macan and Macan S.) That almost makes the most powerful, most expensive Macan (for now) a good value. We say "almost" because the 2020 Macan Turbo starts at $84,950.