Porsche Macan GTS on the way
We love Porsche, we love the Macan and we are here for the news that there’s a sporty-looking GTS on the way.
The Macan gets its GTS (Gran Turismo Sport) designation from the car’s outstanding driving dynamics. Let’s point out something that people often get wrong and thus expectations are not met, GTS for Porsche means sporty, as in sporty looks, lowered ride, improved handling and a smidgen more on power. GTS does not supersede Turbo in the model lineup, it does trump everything in looks though.
Exterior design
GTS badged Porsches get lots of black styling bits. This Macan gets a sport trim package with plenty of black styling details, side skirts, black trim on tailpipes as standard and you can option the LED PDLS (Porsche Dynamic Light System) headlights with a black background, which we love. The Macan GTS is 15 mm lower than it’s standard siblings and rides on 20-inch RS Spyder Design wheels in satin-gloss black finish complemented with red brake callipers making it look every inch the sporty part and we like it!
Exclusive GTS sport seats
On the inside the GTS design language continues, there’s the exclusive GTS sports seats finished in Alcantara, plenty of brushed aluminium details and the highly decadent Alcantara fabric coated everything. The usual GTS etches are present too, in case you forgot which model you’re in. New to the model is the standard inductive charging tray for mobile phones complimented by the BOSE Surround Sound system. As with any Porsche, personalisation is the name of the game and if you’ve got the cash to splash you can go wild when ordering your Macan GTS with the personalisation options.
Macan GTS performance
Power delivery for the Macan GTS hasn’t changed much, still the same 2.9-litre V6 bi-turbo engine, delivering 280 kW, up 15 kW from the GTS predecessor, and with 520 Nm of torque, up 20 Nm from the previous model. It gets the newly tuned PDK dual-clutch gearbox which helps it get from 0-100 km in 4.7 seconds, and you’ll achieve a top speed of 261 km. Claimed fuel consumption from Porsche is 9.6 l/100 km. If you want to take advantage of the performance dynamics of the Macan GTS you can option in the Sports Chrono package, easily identified by the stopwatch feature on the dash, behind the wheel it adds a host of stabilisation systems for razor-sharp handling. If you go for the adaptive air suspension the Macan GTS takes a further 10 mm off the ride height.
The Macan has safety features such as; adaptive cruise control, traffic jam assist, park assist including a rear view and surround birds-eye view camera.
Spoil yourself this festive season. The new Macan GTS is available to order now for delivery in March 2020.
An observation
If you enjoy cars and engines and the finer things of the petrolhead life, let’s take a moment here to talk. If you’re not into this you’re welcome to gloss over this. If you’re interested in engines, hang around.
The engine line-up for the Macan runs something like this;
- 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo Macan (185 kW)
- 3.0-litre V6 turbo Macan S (260 kW)
- 2.9-litre V6 bi-turbo Macan GTS (280 kW)
- 2.9-litre V6 bi-turbo Macan Turbo (324 kW).
The Macan Turbo and Cayenne S share an engine with the Macan GTS, except it gets a heavily detuned version of the engine.
Then we look at Macan pricing:
- Macan is R869 000
- Macan S is just over R1.1million
- Macan Turbo is R1.6 million
- We’re going to have a conservative guestimate here and theorise that the Macan GTS is going to arrive around the R1.3-1.4 million zone.
If we were bean counters and looking purely at value and not driving dynamics and body size between the Macan and the Cayenne we’d be asking what’s the point? What’s the point in buying the range topping though smaller Macan Turbo for R300 000 more than the Cayenne S, which has the same engine, same power numbers, more space, more practicality. Just an observation.
-END-
Images: Porsche newsroom