SPY PICS: Porsche's new baby SUV outed

Here are the first images of Porsche’s all-new fifth model line, the Macan compact SUV, which goes on sale in Europe in October next year before arriving here in early 2014.

Snapped by Carparazzi outside the Porsche development centre in Stuttgart, the Macan is seen here for the first time in its own clothes after being spied previously wearing sheetmetal from the Audi upon which it will be based: the Q5.

While the first almost-undisguised images show the Macan will essentially be a shrunken-down Cayenne, albeit even sleeker than the curvier second-generation large SUV released here in July 2010, motoring.com.au sources say the Macan will also become available with a key point of difference to the Q5 – a three-door ‘coupe’ body style.

Staying true to the design sketch officially released by Porsche in February, the five-door Macan features ‘faster’ front and rear windscreens, a rear-sloping roofline beneath a much more rounded side window line, more muscular shoulders and wheel-arches, and dramatically shorter front and rear overhangs.

Putting it in the same dimensional ballpark as the Q5 – and other mid-size luxury SUVs like the BMW X3 and Range Rover Evoque and Volvo XC60 – the Macan is expected to measure around 4600mm long, 1890mm wide and 1650mm high, which would make it more than 200mm shorter, 50mm narrower and 40mm lower than the Cayenne.

Contrary to some reports, the Macan will not be a reskinned Q5, but it will ride on the same next-generation Audi-developed MLB platform that will underpin a range of Volkswagen Group models, including the redesigned Q5, all-new Q6 and a number of other medium/large SUVs.

Just as the controversial Cayenne did when it was released as Porsche’s first SUV here in 2007, the Macan is expected to almost double the German brand’s sales to more than 2000 in Australia, where it should undercut the $106,100-plus Boxster roadster and $107,700-plus Cayenne to become Porsche’s cheapest – and therefore best-selling – model.

Last year Porsche sold 1343 vehicles here, with the Cayenne accounting for 60 per cent of sales. Sales of smaller $60,000-plus SUVs experience the most sales growth, however, and the Macan will be priced somewhere between the Q5 (from $63,400) and Cayenne, potentially from around $75,000.?
Previously known as ‘Cajun’ (an amalgam of ‘Cayenne’ and ‘junior’) before Porsche christened it the Macan (a name derived from the Indonesian word for tiger), the all-new Porsche SUV will also reportedly be powered by the first Porsche four-cylinder engine since the 968 was phased out in 1995.

It won’t be the same new four-cylinder boxer flat-four that appears in the MkIII Boxster, upcoming MkII Cayman coupe and, perhaps, the all-new born-again 550 Spyder compact roadster, however. Instead, entry models will come with Audi-sourced 2.0-litre petrol and turbodiesel engine, while a 3.6-litre petrol V6 should power the Macan S and the Macan Diesel S will come with a 3.0-litre turbodiesel V6.

While a Macan Hybrid is also on the cards, topping the range – in both three- and five-door guise – will be the Macan Turbo, powered by a new twin-turbocharged petrol V6 delivering about 275kW. Porsche reportedly also has eyes on Audi’s new 230kW twin-turbo V6 diesel, which could motivate a model dubbed the Macan Diesel Turbo.

Expect the Macan to hit Australian showrooms within two years, following a potential world debut at the Paris motor show this September. Porsche plans to build 50,000 examples annually at its Leipzig plant in Germany in October 2013, making the Macan a key plank in its plan to increase annual worldwide sales to 200,000 by 2018 - up from 118,867 in 2011.