2023 Lexus NX vs Porsche Macan

What's the difference?

As far as clichés go, attempting to make “a silk purse from a sow’s ear” couldn’t be more apt than when contemplating the original NX of 2014.

What was essentially the Lexus-fication of the vocal, fidgety and thirsty old Toyota RAV4 may have worked a treat sales-wise, but proved trickier when assessed against the lens of a BMW X3, Audi Q5 and Volvo XC60 rival.

The earliest NX just wasn’t refined enough.

This was especially true following the reborn RAV4 arrival in 2019, proving to be embarrassingly more competent – even compared to most luxury midsized SUV alternatives.

Now, finally, the NX redesign has followed suit, moving on to a variation of the Toyota’s stronger, quieter and more advanced TNGA architecture (dubbed GA-K) as a starting base.

Speaking of which, let’s dive straight into the least-expensive version, the NX 250 Luxury 2WD auto, to find out if the most popular Lexus model in Australia has finally found its mojo.

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.