Porsche has come to the 2024 Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard in substantial force this year, with a two-pronged effort as part of First Glance presented by heycar. Making their public debuts for the first time, the all-new, all-electric Porsche Macan and the new very petrol-powered Cayenne GTS.
It’s in the electric corner that we find the biggest news here, for the second-generation Macan is a hugely important car for Porsche. Taking your best-selling car making it all-electric is a bold move, but if we know anything, it’s that Porsche does these things properly.
It’s the Macan Turbo that’s represented the model on the Hill, resplendent in yellow. It feels like your eyes deceive you as you watch a crossover incongruously deploy a whopping 639PS (470kW) and 1,130Nm (833lb ft), to devastating effect, thanks to the traction of four driven wheels. For the avoidance of doubt, what is for now the most powerful Macan is as potent as the most powerful current 911. It looks every bit of it.
So yes, you did just watch this stout family SUV get to 62mph in around 3.3 seconds. Flat out, it’ll do 162mph. When not catapulting itself up our Hillclimb, it should be good for over 300 miles of real world driving on a full charge.
Keeping the mass under control as it heaves the speed off on the way into Molecomb is the specially-developed Porsche Active Suspension Management with air springs, a limited-slip rear diff, torque vectoring and obviously, fairly hefty brakes.
An altogether different proposition is the Cayenne GTS, arguably the last of the old-school warbling Porsche SUVs. Channelling its inner 955-gen Turbo S, the GTS packs a 500PS (368kW) twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8, getting it to 62mph in 4.4 seconds on the way to a 174mph top speed. The all-electric new boy might pull harder from a standstill, but the Cayenne GTS will swoop past it on the Autobahn.
Obviously, Porsche’s presence is expansive at the 2024 Festival of Speed, from these two running as part of First Glance and the 911s in the supercar paddock, to the racing machinery peppered throughout almost every other batch, and the Taycan representing Stuttgart in Electric Avenue.
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