The Porsche Cayenne a true sport utility

The Porsche Cayenne
a true sport utility

By Michael Binstock

Acorn Automotive Editor

At first look, the Porsche Cayenne is just your ordinary 155-mph off-road sports utility vehicle. But then you have to understand where it’s coming from. In every sense this is a true Porsche, even if it doesn’t strike you at first look.

"The Cayenne is the first vehicle to really put the sport into sport-utility," said Frederick J. Schwab, president and CEO of Porsche Cars North America, when he introduced the car to the media less than two months ago. "I know that others have made a similar boast, but we’re confident that the Cayenne will more than live up to that claim. The Cayenne may have the architecture of an SUV, but it has the soul that is part of every Porsche product," Schwab added.

The Cayenne takes its name from the one of the very hottest of red peppers, recognized around the world as a symbol for zestful spiciness.

With as much as 450 horsepower and with 0-to-62 mph sprint times as quick as 5.6 seconds, and with Porsche Traction Management and other innovative technologies that provide sure-footedness in high-speed lane changes and for crawling up slick rock and down steep and rocky trails, the Cayenne is, according to Porsche, the first true sport-utility.

With four doors, luxuriously comfortable seating for five, room for the gear a family needs to enjoy an active lifestyle, and a towing capacity of more than 7,700 pounds, the Cayenne is the first Porsche to provide such true utility.

The Cayenne S with a 340-horsepower 4.5-liter, normally aspirated V8 engine, places the Cayenne S among the strongest of all sport utilities. It features an all-new, six-speed Tiptronic transmission and introduces the Porsche Traction Management four-wheel-drive technology that provides outstanding performance during maneuvers on a variety of paved and unpaved terrain. The Cayenne S has a base price of $55,900.

With twin turbochargers boosting the output of its 4.5-liter V8, the Cayenne Turbo delivers 450 horsepower and 457 pound-feet of torque, that propels it from a standing start to 62 mph in just 5.6 seconds and to a top track speed of 165. Like the Cayenne S, the Cayenne Turbo comes with such standard equipment as Porsche Stability Management, a six-speed Tiptronic S transmission, front, side and curtain airbags, full leather upholstery and automatic climate controls. The Cayenne Turbo adds such features as an aluminum-trimmed interior and the new Porsche Communications Management technology that includes a navigation system and Bose Cabin Surround Sound System. The Cayenne Turbo has a base price of $88,900

As fast as they are, the Cayenne is just as capable off-pavement, thanks to its combination of Porsche Traction Management and air suspension that can provide nearly 11 inches of ground clearance for traversing rough terrain.

Porsche can look back on more than a century of all-wheel-drive technology. Its first vehicle of this type was a Lohner Porsche, a racecar that Ferdinand Porsche delivered to his customer E.W. Hart in Luton, just north of London, England. There is no record of how many races Hart may have won with this vehicle, but in 1901, Ferdinand Porsche won the Exelberg Rally driving a similar vehicle.

The Lohner Porsche featured Porsche’s latest development; the wheel hub motor, which was praised in the contemporary press as an "epoch-making innovation." The drive mechanism worked without friction losses to achieve an extraordinary efficiency level of 85 percent, over 100 years ago. NASA also used Porsche’s invention on its lunar rover that explored the surface of the moon.

While the Cayenne is built on the same platform as a new Volkswagen SUV, the motors, drive train and interiors are uniquely Porsche. The new Porsche V8 is a 4.5-liter unit with 32 valves (two intake and two exhaust valves per cylinder), Porsche’s VarioCam® technology, and integral dry sump lubrication. The V8 shares much of its internal architecture with the water-cooled six-cylinder engine that was developed to power the Porsche Boxster. However, Porsche engineers developed specific components and dimensions for the Cayenne’s new V8.

Engine coolant is distributed to the crankcase and cylinder heads by a distribution pipe located above the transmission. The water pump, mounted at the front of the engine, pumps coolant through a pipe located in the interior of the engine’s V.

Because of such higher loads, the Cayenne Turbo has cylinder heads made of special high temperature-resistant aluminum alloy similar to that used in Porsche racecar

Both Cayenne models will have permanent four-wheel drive, an inter-axle differential lock and additional low-range gears, Porsche Stability Management (PSM), and the ability to tow 7,716 pounds. Both Cayenne models ride on wheels that range from 18 inches to 20 inches in diameter.

"Historically, Porsche has been at the forefront of all-wheel-drive design," said Schwab. "It began with the Lohner-Porsche in 1900 and was highlighted by the Porsche 959 in 1985, and that car’s victory in the Paris-Dakar marathon. The Cayenne is a natural next step for Porsche."

To ensure the Cayenne is both a true Porsche and a true SUV, it has gone through several years of comprehensive testing in remote locations across the globe. Test vehicles were on the Porsche development track at Weissach as early as the spring of 1998, and in addition to Germany’s famed Nürburgring; on-track tests also were done at Nardo (Italy) and on Hockenheim, home of the annual German Grand Prix. The Cayenne and its various components and systems also were tested in the snow and ice in Sweden and Canada; on the sand and rock of Dubai; in the harsh environment of the Australian Outback; in the mountains of the American West, Spain and in the Alps; and on hundreds of thousands of miles of highways around the world.

This is sure to be one of the most spectacular new car launches for many years. Locally, Rusnak Westlake in the Thousand Oaks Auto Mall will introduce the car mid March with a special event and an open house.