2015 Porsche Macan S / Turbo

Endurance ace David Jahn is setting a smart pace at Porsche’s private Leipzig racetrack. His 911 Carrera’s spoiler deploys when straightaway speeds near 100 mph and then retracts under braking. Three journalists nip at the 911’s rump around the 2.3-mile collection of corners copied from the world’s most revered circuits, SOP for these occasions. What’s unusual about this lapping session is that Jahn is hustling his 911 at 9/10ths to stay ahead of a pack of SUVs.

Porsche’s Macan isn’t the first ute armed with 911-caliber horsepower, but it is the first attempt to jam five conflicting skills—speed, agility, comfort, utility, and off-road nerve—into one handy package. The name Macan, an Indonesian word for “tiger” that Porsche pronounces “Ma-CAHN,” says it all. This cat has claws and cunning that will scar the SUV world.

Dynamically Pleasing

The Macan’s guidance system is tight on-center and frank on turn-in. Even without much road dialogue through the electrically assisted system, the steering manages to bolster the driver’s confidence. The brakes provide a firm pedal with stopping power strictly proportional to applied pressure. Likewise, the springs, the anti-roll bars, and the dampers check body rock and roll. The king is secure on his sport-seat throne, thanks to ideal orthopedic support and unyielding rib and thigh bolsters. This is truly the SUV for those who swore they’d never be caught driving one.

To make its point that the Macan is a worthy addition to the 80-plus SUVs already available in the U.S., Porsche provided opportunities to explore two additional legs of the versatility stool. Twenty minutes after hot laps at Leipzig’s off-road course, we teetered over ammo bunkers used by the Soviet Army. Then we buzzed the base Macan S past 150 mph on the perfectly paved autobahns surrounding Porsche’s eastern-German manufacturing campus. The one test not offered was a visit to a big-box store to gauge cargo space.

Purists howled when Porsche broke its sports-car mold with the Cayenne SUV a dozen years ago, and they surely will whine over another family member with too many doors, pounds, and inches of wheelbase. Consider this Zuffenhausen’s strategy to keep the sports-car assembly lines humming by offering an SUV done properly to a world craving the things.

Porsche spent three years simmering Audi Q5 SUV and 911 sports-car genes in its crockpot to get the Macan just right. What emerged carries on the Q’s layout and 110.5-inch wheelbase but little else. The Macan is longer, wider, and much lower than Audi’s small ute. The resulting proportions—think Ford Edge with a 3.6-inch haircut—and a racy greenhouse drive the Macan to an unexplored corner of the SUV map. Both sport and utility live under this roof, but there’s never a doubt which of the traits rules.

Porsche invested $677 million in Macan manufacturing facilities and bolted in new engines, four-wheel-drive systems, and suspension hardware. More than two-thirds of the donor Q5’s parts have been replaced or altered. An aluminum hood arcs from windshield to grille and from tire to tire to eliminate unseemly seams. Staggered-size wheels and tires and swollen rear haunches give the Macan that tail-heavy 911 look. The conversation piece, what design chief Michael Mauer calls a sideblade—a term you may recall also being applied to the Audi R8’s trademark styling feature—is a cavity hollowed out of the door surfaces to lower visual height.

Two power and trim levels—S and Turbo—stretch the window stickers from $50,895 ($300 more than a base Cayenne!) to well over $100,000 with options. If that’s beyond your budget, fret not, because a more affordable four-cylinder Macan is likely later this year. A V-6 turbo-diesel model arrives in 2015.