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DRIVEN: Cayenne Turbo Rates As True Porsche
Written by: Tom Jensen   
06/11/2009
Charlotte NC
 
Back in 2002, when Porsche built its first sport utility vehicle, the True Believers were horrified. Porsche had always been a name synonymous with light, agile sports cars that held the road as if they were attached with Velcro.

Porsche purists howled, but Cayenne soon proved its mettle as an SUV worthy of the sports-car maker's name. (Photo: Porsche) » More Photos
What in the world was the fabled German automaker doing messing around with something as ungainly – and un-Porsche-like – as a four-door, four-wheel-drive trucklette?

Well, the truth was simultaneously very simple and very complicated. The simple part was that the Porsche Cayenne was a vehicle that could be sold in quantities high enough to allow Porsche to remain independent, something it very much wanted to do. Face it, not everyone who wanted a Porsche could live with something as small as a 911 or a Boxster, and the Cayenne offered folks with families their first real opportunity to have a Porsche as the main car.

Cayenne Turbo backs up its Porsche heritage with powerful turbo V-8. (Photo: Porsche) » More Photos
The complex part is that the Cayenne, despite having four doors and weighing more than two-and-a-half tons, is still every bit a Porsche, still absolutely faithful to its Teutonic performance ideals. I learned that seven years ago riding with David Donohue as he whipped around Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama, showing me the fast lines through the challenging road course before turning the Cayenne over to me to drive at speed.

During that same excursion, Hurley Haywood demonstrated the handling characteristics of the Cayenne by ripping through an autocross course at breathtaking speed – while towing a 911 behind it on a trailer.

And depending on which tires a Cayenne was wearing at any given time, it could either go very fast on the track — Haywood called it “the heavy 911” — or it could act as sort of a four-wheel Sherpa, able to traverse exceedingly difficult off-road terrain in any sort of weather conditions.


So once you let your prejudices go, the Cayenne is an extremely attractive vehicle for a lot of reasons. And Porsche, wisely, has produced enough different Cayenne variants to satisfy a wide range of interests and budgets.

Porsche’s lineup now consists of the 290-horsepower V-6-powered Cayenne, (MSRP $44,600); the naturally aspirated V-8 powered 385-horse Cayenne S ($59,400) and Cayenne GTS ($70,900), which is rated at 405 horsepower; the 500-horsepower turbocharged Cayenne Turbo ($97,700); and the new-for-2009 Cayenne Turbo S, which produces a gut-wrenching 550 horsepower along with 553 foot-pounds of torque, all for a cool $123,600.

And apparently whatever Porsche is doing works. While Cayenne sales are down this year in the United States, through the first five months of 2009, they have fallen less sharply than those of the 911, Boxster or Cayman. During that same period, Cayenne’s have accounted for 43 percent of all new Porsche’s sold in the United States.

Clearly, the Cayenne resonates with Porsche buyers.


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