Porsche wins Car of the Year for the 3rd time in a row – how and why?

March, 2015 - The announcement of the winner of the 2015 WesBank / SAGMJ Car of the Year competition. 

The winner is the Porsche Macan S Diesel.

An unusual hushed silence followed the announcement of the winner.  Perhaps in disbelief, the audience was collectively thinking something along the lines of “Porsche wins… for the 3rd time in a row!?”… or were they thinking “This is the worthy winner”.

The questions to determine the winner were: 

• Which one stands out as the most innovative in its class?
• Which car is the best among its peers?

We published our predictions, and considered the Macan as potential winner, were it not for 2 Porsches that won the previous 2 years – here is what we said:
“Can the Macan win again for Porsche?  If it does, it will make it a Porsche 3-in-a-row… and it would cast doubt on the fairness of the COTY competition.  It is a bit unfair, as it will likely not win because its brothers won previously.  Macan does for compact SUVs what its big brother Cayenne did – bring a sporty drive to its segment.”

Let’s assess the Porsche Macan S Diesel to see how and why it won.  Consider this:  this car is innovative as the first cross-over SUV to offer such an excellent blend of sought-after talents, including:

1.dynamic sporty driving experience, which advances its smaller segment in the way its Cayenne big brother did years ago
2.ideal overall shape, sized to be a compact SUV with great visibility, drivability and practicality
3.a premium cross-over SUV with strong performance yet reasonable efficiency, thanks to a 3.0 V6 turbo diesel engine, mated to a superb PDK              automated dual-clutch gearbox
4.impeccable engineering and build quality
5.reasonable value versus its main rivals, being Audi SQ5 TDI, BMW X4 xDrive30d and Range Rover Evoque SD4 Autobiography
6.a car you can drive daily, do the school run, go shopping, arrive at meetings (looking professional), go on a sporty breakfast run, and tow the boat or bikes, do mild off-roading… it is just so good in so many areas.

The COTY competition has received so much criticism for being irrelevant to South Africa, and for choosing cars that most people cannot afford… but the point of the competition is to find motoring excellence – not to find a car for the people, nor a car considering the country’s economic strength, nor the cheapest, nor the most popular by public vote (there are motoring publications which cover such awards).

The award title includes the name SAGMJ, which means the South African Guild of Motoring Journalists are motoring journalists and editors who experience and test new cars on launch events and during road tests, who know which cars stand out against their peers, or not.  This is something the general public cannot do – most people do not have the opportunity to thoroughly assess all new cars, which SAGMJ members do have.  The Guild also selects judges, who test these cars again, to allocate points in various categories, measured against their rivals.  That is how the winner is chosen.  This is a winner selected by the Guild COTY judges – not the winner selected by the public.

With South Africans having such a buying love for cross-overs and SUVs, there were a few of these launched in the previous year which made them eligible for entry into this competition – Macan was one of these, and it is about time that this type of vehicle won (as this is the body style that South Africans buy increasingly, so judges chose the Porsche as best in its class).  2 years ago, when the Porsche Boxster won, the Land Rover Range Rover Evoque was so close (if it were not for a few judges who allocated their maximum 10 points per car to the Porsche), meaning Range Rover Evoque would have won, being an innovative and excellent all-round vehicle.

Porsche makes it a 2nd 1st, by being the 1st to win with a sports car, and again the 1st to win with a cross-over/SUV.

Look at it in isolation – the complaints are about Porsche which has scored a hat-trick COTY win, yes?  If Porsche hadn’t won the previous 2 years, surely there would not be so many comments about how COTY is not relevant to the market… instead, many people would applaud a Porsche winning, as a first car to take the crown in this growing-trend segment. 

Porsche Macan S Diesel is innovative, and excels in its segment – it is therefore a worthy winner of the 2015 WesBank / SAGMJ Car of the Year.

brand range model	Porsche Macan S Diesel	Audi SQ5 TDI quattro	BMW X4 xDrive30d	Land Rover Range Rover Evoque SD4 Autobiography
price (incl taxes)	R 862 000	R 867 000	R 811 475	R 797 722
engine + detail	3.0 turbo diesel	3.0 turbo diesel	3.0 turbo diesel	2.2 turbo diesel
cylinders	V6	V6	6	4
fuel	diesel	diesel	diesel	diesel
power maximum	180 kW	230 kW	190 kW	140 kW
torque maximum	580 Nm	650 Nm	560 Nm	420 Nm
fuel consumption	6.1 l/100km	6.8 l/100km	5.7 l/100km	6.3 l/100km
CO2 emissions	159 g/km	179 g/km	149 g/km	167 g/km
acceleration 0-100km/h	6.3 sec	5.1 sec	5.8 sec	8.5 sec
maximum/top speed	230 km/h	250 km/h	234 km/h	195 km/h
driven wheels	all	all	all	all
gearshift	automatic	automatic	automatic	automatic
gear ratios	7	8	8	9