2017 Jaguar F-Pace S vs. 2017 Porsche Macan GTS

In an industry that lives and dies by the sales of Camrys and pickup trucks, advocating for enthusiasts sometimes feels like standing in a raging river and shouting at it to reverse course. Manu­al transmissions are slipping toward oblivion. Fuel-economy regulations are driving diversity from manufacturers’ engine port­folios, replacing it with efficient homogeneity. And perhaps most worrying is the proliferation of crossovers. They’re like an algal bloom threatening to choke out all other life-forms in the interest of easy ingress and a commanding driver’s position. But a few shafts of light have started to pierce the heavy blanket of crossover conformity. Porsche’s first glimmer of hope, the Cayenne, dates to before most people realized the market potential of a high-performance crossover. In its first year on the market, the Cayenne became Porsche’s best-selling model. The creators of the Pink Pig learned lessons from their new 5000-pound supersow, and the smaller, Audi Q5–based Macan has already dethroned the Cayenne as the brand’s sales leader. The example tested here is the new-for-2017 GTS, which splits the difference between the $55,450, 340-hp S model and the $77,050, 400-horse Revised ECU tuning boosts the Macan GTS’s output over the S’s to 360 horsepower and 369 pound-feet, while standard adjustable air springs lower ride height by 0.4 inch. Like other Macans, the GTS is only available as an all-wheel-driver with a seven-speed PDK dual-clutch transmission. This example’s $68,250 base price swelled to an as-tested sticker of $77,255. Notable extras include the Premium ­Package Plus ($3390; panoramic sunroof, heated seats front and rear, keyless entry and starting, and auto-dimming mirrors), brake-based torque vectoring ($1490), the Sport Chrono package ($1290; dash-mounted stopwatch, launch control, and sport-plus mode for harder-edged suspension and drivetrain responses), and a key painted to match the car (cost to you: $525; cost to Porsche: maybe a buck). Any color other than simple black or white also costs extra, and our Volcano Grey Metallic lists for $690. The Carmine Red on our cover Macan? $3120. Jaguar’s beacon of hope is new for 2017. Never mind that Land Rover functions as the SUV arm of jointly owned Jaguar Land Rover; to get Americans to pay attention, every brand needs its own crossover. Jaguar plows a lot of aluminum into the F-Pace, using the lightweight stuff for most of the body structure and suspension components. A diesel four-cylinder is the base engine, but the likely volume engines are a pair of aluminum V-6s shared with the F-type.

2017 Porsche 718 Cayman S PDK Automatic

Home / Reviews / Porsche / 718 Cayman / 2017 Porsche 718 Cayman S PDK Automatic - Instrumented Test VIEW 61 PHOTOS INSTRUMENTED TEST 2017 Porsche 718 Cayman S PDK Automatic More holistic than before. NOV 2016 BY KEVIN A. WILSON PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL SIMARI SHARE TWEET In our previous reviews of the stablemates for this 2017 Porsche 718 Cayman S—the Boxster, Boxster S, and base Cayman—we’ve already detailed the transformation from the previous naturally aspirated six-cylinder engine to turbocharged flat-four power. In short, the new engines are more powerful but sound completely different. This transformation stirs debate. Is a forced-induction four-banger that makes more power “better” than the former naturally aspirated flat-six that needed to be run out to redline to make power but sounded so beautiful while doing it? The new 2.5-liter turbocharged four-cylinder generates 350 horsepower—25 more than the old 3.4-liter six—but it does not create operatic music. It instead emits a raspy, uncouth sound that strikes some drivers as unpleasant and grating in the way people can’t figure out how that nasally Dylan character landed a Nobel Prize for literature. It’s just so artless, they complain. In the case of this S model (and Bob Dylan, for that matter), they’ve got a point about the singing voice, but they’re wrong about artistry.

Linear Power Delivery

With 0.5-liter more displacement and a variable-vane turbocharger that comes into play earlier in the rev range, the S doesn’t suffer the turbo lag we noted in our test of the base Cayman with a manual transmission. It makes less boost (a maximum 14.5 psi versus 20.3 for the 2.0-liter), and its specific output of 140 horsepower per liter is lower than the 2.0-liter model’s 151, which means—depending on who’s reading—either that it’s less stressed or that there’s more room for aftermarket tuning enhancements. The larger point is that there’s a linearity to this engine’s response that, we’ll argue, makes it worth considering an S model with fewer options versus loading a base Cayman with Porsche’s notoriously pricey add-ons, despite a $12,400 gap in their base MSRPs.

Look at a graph of the torque and power curves (depicted in this review of a 2017 718 Boxster S) and you can see why—below 2000 rpm the 2.0-liter engine’s torque output sags like a loosely strung power line before it rises steeply toward the broad plateau from 2000 to 4500 rpm. In the S version, by contrast, the 2.5-liter’s torque curve makes a straight line to its higher but similarly broad peak output. Turn your attention to horsepower and the new Cayman S shows a straighter, smoother line from idle to its 6500-rpm power crest than did the 2014–2016 Cayman S with the flat-six that peaked at 7200 rpm. The latter had an agreeably split personality, mildly entertaining at low rpm but with a pulse-quickening ride to redline once the variable intake-valve system came into play around 4000 rpm. This “on-the-cam” sensation can be delightful in the right circumstances, and the auditory results won praise from drivers of our long-term 2014 Cayman S. That said, the ideal power “curve” wouldn’t curve at all but rise on a constant upward slope, with each additional 100 rpm accompanied by exactly the same portion of added power. The new Cayman S engine comes closer to that ideal than the old one did.

In practice, coupled with our test car’s seven-speed PDK dual-clutch automatic transmission, this results in a more nearly perfect Cayman. Mind you, that’s in the context of a car we’ve been putting on our 10Best Cars list pretty consistently for a decade (it missed joining the Boxster in 2013 only due to a model-year-changeover hiccup). Getting closer to perfection when you’re almost there is an incremental business.