Stuttgart’s new ‘sports car in the SUV segment’ has been christened ‘Macan’. Having exhausted all the Roman and Greek names, manufacturers are turning to fresher pastures. Nissan went to Persia for the ‘Qashqai’ and our own Maruti went to Indonesia for the ‘Ertiga’, meaning three rows. Now Porsche has named its baby Cayenne the Macan, the Indonesian word for tiger hinting at suppleness, power, fascination and dynamics, which are all characteristics of the car says Porsche. The Macan will be smaller than the Cayenne and will be based on the Audi Q5 chassis with changes to make it more Porsche.
The Macan will play a very important role in Porsche’s Strategy 2018, the intention of which is to expand Porsche’s model line up. The site in Leipzig ,Saxony is being expanded into a fully-fledged production plant including body assembly line and paint shop. The 500 million Euro investment is one of the biggest building projects in Porsche’s corporate history. Porsche also says this will create 1000 new jobs.
The SUV will start coming off the production lines in Leipzig in 2013.
A three door version, and a hybrid shouldn’t be too far down the line.
The Macan also happens to be the baby Cayenne that the journalist fraternity has for quite a while been calling the ‘Cajun’.