In the first written installment on our long-term Cayenne (ec 05/05), Editor Bidrawn referred to it as "a lifted 911, a sports car for dirt or street." I don't completely agree with this statement. In my eyes, the two are entirely different creatures. You won't really want to take the Cayenne full-tilt around the Nrburgring or drive it fast up a twisted mountain road, just as you wouldn't want to take a 911 over an unpaved, apocalyptic wasteland.
Still, Porsche's SUV has its merits. Two years ago I drove the Cayenne range (S, Turbo and V6) around Porsche's winter driving facility in northern Finland during late November, and found each one a strikingly capable performer in some pretty harsh off-road conditions. The driving wasn't just over snow and ice. Through the off-road portions of the course the Cayenne's suspension, with a lockable center diff and anti-roll bars that can disengage on demand, was capable of incredible articulation and traversed obstacles I might have believed impossible to navigate. In this respect, it truly is an amazing vehicle, because after you're finished boulder hopping and puddle jumping, you drop the suspension and hit the paved highways with a confidence you'll not get from any other SUV. Simply put, the Cayenne hauls ass like no other SUV or truck-like thing I've ever driven.
Incidentally, it hauls too, meaning if you've got a boat, toy-hauler or car trailer, rest assured the Cayenne S has plenty of torque on tap and a towing capacity of 7,716 pounds to get you and all your stuff where you need to go. Of course, the powerful V8 has its downsides. Actually, just one I can think of: fuel economy. Keep your foot in the throttle as we like to in Southern California and you'll be filling at least one $50 tank each week, possibly more.
Back to the 911 thing. If you get in a Cayenne and drive it up a winding mountain road like you'd drive a Carrera, you're going to end up one of two places: back at the bottom via the hard and fast route or augured into a slope. Hopefully you'd be able to figure that out once you're behind the wheel. There's no debating that this vehicle is big, heavy and sits significantly higher than your average sports car. Therefore, you should not get into the Cayenne and expect an experience like the one you may have had behind the wheel of one of the manufacturer's performance coupes. Rather, you ought to focus on appreciating it for what it is-a fast, thoroughly refined performance SUV engineered to make most others look downright silly-but not on what you think it should be simply because it wears a Porsche badge.
Maybe a better way to think of it is this: The Cayenne will deliver a comparatively sublime on-road experience, while still offering a competent off-road nature. It's definitely sporty and reasonably precise in a 5,000-pound kind of way, driving more like a car than a truck at speed. And of course it'll go places no other Porsche would dream of going. Considering this, it is perhaps the most widely appealing and capable vehicle Porsche has ever built, which could account for extremely ebullient sales in North America, producing numbers which have surpassed just about everyone's expectations (mostly those in the automotive press).
Quick StatsTotal mileage: 12,384Fuel economy: 14.3 mpgThumbs up: Off-road utility, high-speed stabilityThumbs down: Thirsty V8, bland styling