Porsche on the slopes
I drive Porsche's Cayenne SUV – and eventually I see the light...
REGULAR readers will recall that a few months ago I enjoyed one of those rare opportunities of driving a Porsche - the new 911 to be precise, and I loved every minute of it. But I have to admit, I'd never understood the Cayenne.
You see, Porsche to me means one thing and one thing alone - very distinctive sports cars with engines in the back, machines with that oh-so recognisable shape, albeit likened to a duck by the unappreciative Mrs C.
So what on earth is the Cayenne about then? Porsche means sports cars, if you want an off-roader you go and talk to Land Rover - until the day that Porsche decided to make a Land Rover. Well to be more precise, Porsche decided to make a Range Rover, a vehicle that would compete head-on with Land Rover's SUV for the very well-off country squire. After all if the German maker's young upstart rivals down in Munich could produce a 4x4 so successfully in the BMW X5, why couldn't just such a beast emerge from the famed factory in Stuttgart?
Nope, it still didn't wash with me. It all seemed wrong, until the day a few weeks ago when I finally climbed up into a Cayenne (when did one ever not slip down into a Porsche?) - and then I understood.
The revelation came as I took in what were familiar surroundings - it was like being in a 911 with loads of space. I can see what happened now. Porsche management decided to build an off-roader, and so they marched into the design department, threw pictures of Range Rovers, Lexuses (Lexi?) and perhaps Toyota Land Cruisers in front of the gathered creative brains, and said "we want one of those." So the design chaps looked up SUV in the Automotive A-Z, discovered such vehicles had four-wheel drive and the ability to climb mountain tracks, and duly built such features - into a typical Porsche...
Which is why even in its most basic 3.2-litre form (and basic is not a word you associate with the Cayenne) this SUV pumps out 250 horses, hits 62mph from rest in under 10 seconds and goes on to more than 130mph. But that is indeed the basic version. Buy a Cayenne S and you have 4.5 litres, 62mph in less than seven seconds and a 150mph terminal speed. And we're not finished, because there's a turbo, of course. It will happily take you to 165mph, having passed the 62mph marker in 5.6 seconds. Yes, that's typical Porsche territory - in fact it's less than a second short of Ferrari territory.
To anyone who has driven a typical SUV such speeds in something that sits so high off the ground will sound like madness, a lethal cocktail. But this is where the Cayenne really surprises. It doesn't roll about like a ship on the high seas, in fact it rides with all the refinement of an executive cruiser. And it has such phenomenal grip, even when you use that plentiful power in the twisty bits. But of course it would wouldn't it, because it's a Porsche (Automotive A-Z description of the word Porsche - stonking good sports car).
What we do know, because Porsche has proven it to us, is that the Cayenne does indeed have all the off-road ability of its rivals - should the urge take you then you can indeed go mountain-climbing in this thing. But after a week with the biggest Porsche I still didn't quite get it, my biggest problem being that I could not work out why anyone who had paid out a not insignificant amount both to buy and run this big-wheeled 911 (20mpg fuel economy? Only with a following hurricane...) would ever want to abuse it in typical off-road territory. But the answer was at hand...
Just before Christmas I got taken to Switzerland, ironically on the launch of another SUV at the other end of the scale, Kia's Sportage. We arrived in that winter playground for the not-doing-badly-thank-you winter ski set, St Moritz, and guess what we saw just about everywhere, charging confidently along the constantly snow and slush-afflicted mountain roads? Yup, Cayennes. Clearly such places are natural territory for this vehicle, and all the justification those Porsche bosses ever needed...