2018 Jaguar F-Pace vs Porsche Macan

What's the difference?

New cars are all about sacrifice, right? If you want something sporty, then be prepared to suffer through storage space limited to your internal organs. If you want something practical, then you can kiss the idea of driving something stylish goodbye. And if you want something that can move lots of people, then you might as well head on down to your closest Crocs retailer now, as you clearly value practicality above all else.

But what if you want all three of those things, and all at once? Enter, then, the Jaguar F-Pace.

That Jaguar’s sexy SUV is easy on the eye is a given (I mean, just look at it), but with a supercharged V6 lurking under that shapely bonnet, this S 35t version is not short on performance either. And with oodles of room in both rows of seats, and a boot big enough to swallow an Ikea catalogue’s worth of flat-packed nonsense, it’s pretty damn practical, too.

So what’s the catch?

My mate Bram is the hardest of hardcore Porsche-philes. For him, Porsche ceased to exist 20 years ago when the 911 switched from air to water cooling. He once sent me a scan of a press ad for the Panamera E-Hybrid, and seriously questioned the meaning of life in his accompanying note.

So, you can imagine his confusion when, in 2002, what he refers to as “the company formerly known as Porsche” produced the Cayenne SUV.

Then, just over three years ago, the decision-makers in Zuffenhausen doubled down on the whole SUV thing, unveiling a mid-size five-seater called the Macan.

Bram remains in occasional therapy, but there’s no doubting the new car’s success. It was far and away Porsche’s biggest seller in Australia in 2017, with nearly two-and-a-half thousand finding homes here; that number more than doubling the brand’s next best result, for, you guessed it, the Cayenne.

About a year ago, Porsche launched this entry-level model, the Macan. That’s just M-A-C-A-N on the boot. No S, no GTS, no Turbo. And to help get to an $80,110 price-point (easily the cheapest way into a Porsche in this country), Porsche has slipped a relatively humble 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine under the bonnet.

So, is the ‘base’ Macan experience a truly Porsche one, or that of a posh SUV with a go-fast badge?