MotorTrend Pit Jaguar F-Pace S Against Macan GTS In Head-2-Head

How does Jaguar’s sporty SUV stack up with Porsche? Pretty dang well.

In the sports car world, Porsche is the standard-bearer not just with their evergreen 911 but also with their “entry-level” Boxster and Cayman. The Audi Q5-based Porsche Macan GTS is a serious contender for the peak of the high-end/small-SUV market. MotorTrend’s Head-2-Head recently pit the Macan against the Jaguar F-Pace S on Bridgestone’s Winter Driving Academy course in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. If you’ve driven the F-Pace, you might not be too surprised, but hosts Jonny Lieberman and Jason Cammisa both find a lot of great things about Jaguar’s entry.

Sure, much of the episode centers around the inevitable mom jokes that come with the market segment and, after all, that’s really for whom both car companies are building their respective entries into it. On paper, their performance stacks up pretty closely. Both feature 3.0-liter dual-overhead-cam V6s with similar power figures. The supercharged F-Pace makes 20 more horsepower but 37 fewer ft.-lb of torque than the twin-turbo Macan, which is slightly quicker. The Jaguar weighs about 60 pounds less and has one more cog in the gearbox, although the Macan has a dual-clutch transmission to the F-Pace’s.

Blah blah blah, right?

You really want to see them in action and hear what Lieberman and Cammisa have to say about how they drive. Both have many perks and upsides; either would be a fine such luxury SUV to own. That any one company, let alone two, is building an SUV designed to be a hoot on twisty roads is a major leap forward. The key words here are “fun” and “sexy,” which are words that both hosts use to describe to the F-Pace only, although they both agree that “F-Pace” is not the world’s most riveting name. Curiously, neither delves into the price points, which is unfortunate since the Jaguar, as tested, costs $18,000 less than the Macan.

Here’s the review for you.