2023 BMW X1 vs Porsche Macan

What's the difference?

BMW’s X1 has changed. In a good way. Especially if you’re thinking about buying one as a family car.

Yep, last year the third-generation X1 arrived and after 13 years and three different attempts on a design, BMW has nailed it. And by ‘it’ I mean built a super practical and spacious small SUV that’s great to drive. 

See, as a dad of two kids, when it comes to cars and my family ‘it’ means something totally different to what ‘it’ meant 10 years ago.

And that’s what this review is about: does the BMW X1, and specifically this xDrive20i M Sport variant we’ve tested here, make a good family car?

If you're thinking of buying it for your family then you need to read this and also consider the likes of Audi’s Q3 and the Mercedes-Benz GLB.

For Porsche, T is much more than the 20th letter of the alphabet. In Weissach-world it stands for Touring, and has been applied to special 911 variants for over half a century.

More recently it’s been attached to the 718 Boxster and Cayman, and now the mid-size Macan SUV.

Porsche says T means “precise tuning, exclusive equipment and efficient engines”, and this most recent example adds another option in the Macan line-up, one rung above the entry-level model.

We spent a week with this recently introduced 2.0-litre, four-cylinder, AWD machine to see how far it expands the Porsche Macan performance and practicality envelope.