Porsche Macan for double debut

Porsche will take advantage of the fact this year’s Los Angeles and Tokyo motor shows fall on the same day in November 20 by staging almost simultaneous global debuts of its new Macan crossover.

The all-new mid-size SUV will make its world public premiere at the bi-annual Japanese show on November 20 just hours before it makes its North American debut at the LA show, confirmed Porsche CEO Matthias Mueller.

“We will launch it in Los Angeles and on the same day in Tokyo,” he said during the global reveal of Porsche’s new 918 Spyder hybrid hypercar in Frankfurt last week.

Mueller said the Stuttgart sports car maker would adopt a top-down approach for the Macan, which will be launched exclusively with six-cylinder models, followed by four-cylinder petrol and diesel powerplants down the track.

“It will have six cylinders at the beginning, and we have an option also to do four-cylinder models during the lifecycle.”

Mueller would not reveal how much later the Macan, which will be launched in Australia by mid-2014, will become available with Audi-sourced four-cylinder petrol and diesel engines, but it will be after the Macan is released in Australia in June next year.

Therefore, expect the Cayenne’s smaller SUV stablemate to arrive here with entry-level petrol V6 and twin-turbocharged petrol V6 engines for Macan S and Macan Turbo.

The Macan S E-Hybrid, powered by the same V6 petrol-electric drivetrain as the Panamera S E-Hybrid, will be positioned in between – but won’t arrive in Australia until 2015.

An expected Australian starting price of about $70,000 will therefore not eventuate until the release of four-cylinder Macan variants, powered by 2.0-litre turbo-petrol and turbo-diesel engines from fellow Volkswagen Group sister brand Audi, whose next-generation Q5 also forms the basis of the Macan.

Mueller said the Macan, which is expected to double Porsche sales in Australia to 3000 per annum by 2016, will play an integral role in Porsche’s target of 200,000 annual sales by 2018.

"We expect around 50,000 [Macan] units a year -- maybe a little bit more, we'll see. In any way it will be successful," he stated.

In 2012 Porsche sold 143,096 vehicles -- an increase of 22.3 per cent over 2011's global sales tally of 116,978. The Cayenne was by far the biggest contributor with 77,822 sales, accounting for more than half of all Porsche sales.

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