QOTD: Best Upscale SUV Design of the 2010s?

We continue our discussion of SUV and CUV design from the 2010s today with our third question entry of the series. The first and second editions covered the best and worst parts of affordable SUV/CUV design, with a strict price ceiling of $48,000.

Today we head upscale and only consider really expensive rides.

As before, we have some limiters to keep the competitor field level-ish: Only production vehicles are up for discussion today; no concepts or one-off bespoke trucks. Selections must hail from model years 2010 to 2019. Finally, your best design nominations must cost over $48,000 when new; no cheap stuff today.

Now we move on to my selection, which won’t be what you were expecting:

A CUV that’s barely costly enough to qualify for today’s question, it’s the Porsche Macan. Recalling when Porsche announced they were going to make a smaller CUV to accompany the Cayenne in showrooms, I wasn’t too interested. The first Cayenne looked utterly awful, and appeared dated in roughly two years. The second generation carried more modern styling, but resided in the Expensive Things Realtors Drive category — so I ignored it.

But then the Macan arrived as a 2015 model in the U.S.; I saw an ad somewhere and wasn’t impressed. However, when I saw a couple of these vehicles in person, I began to revise my opinion. I liked the proportions, and how it looked very different to its Audi Q5 sibling. The Porsche face, which looked too big on the Cayenne, was downsized to a reasonable scale for Macan, and it worked. It also seemed as though Porsche sweated the details with regard to quality. Nary a trim piece was misaligned on any example I saw. And not that it matters for today’s discussion, but reviews seemed to state overwhelmingly that the Macan was good to drive. I was sold on the Macan, and remain so today.

But my vote for best design is probably a minority one here. What’s your pick?

[Images: Audi, Porsche]