I had the opportunity to drive hot laps in a CayenneS V8, then go off roading in the same truck. Its sort of impressive to be able to hang on to a 996 Carrera round 3 or 4 laps of a high speed asphalt track, then stand on the -very capable- anchors from 120mph, turn off the track and drive straight up a 40 deg shale incline, stopping half way up.

Its a pretty impressive soccer mum truck. An engineering tour de force, in fact.

Yep, like it or no, it certainly is that.

The Beck Cayenne replica is going to be one hot seller.

Indeed. A lot of people bash the car/truck without driving it, which is inexcusable. While still not a Hummer (H1), it's a no-compromises off-roading vehicle and is truly a remarkable ride. Regardless of whether you like the styling or not, people should judge the car/truck on its performance and merits...

-Wayne

Thank you for the confirmation Wayne.
regards,
Steve

I'm happily bashing the idea of it after enjoying a wonderful opportunity to drive it. Like I said before it handles wonderfully and it is an amazing achievement to get all aspects of its performance into an SUV form factor. I bet Porsche could amaze us with the performance of a vehicle designed with 3 wheels, double-decker seating for eight, and 3 feet of ground clearance... BUT WHY WOULD YOU WANT ONE? There are better solutions (unless you like to be stared at like a circus performer:)).

Using snow as an excuse for an urban SUV is silly. The secret to snow is NARROW TIRES. If you think that an SUV is what is needed for snow then someone has lied to you. If you go somewhere with snow you will find lots of CARS. They don’t abandon them in the winter. 4 wheel drive is not necessary for snow and ice. It only helps acceleration and does nothing for cornering or the all important 'stop'. Frankly a half hour of classroom instruction would get you more acceleration then 4 wheel drive will.

Any non offroad excuse for an SUV is similar to using the same logic to pick a 5' high unicycle over a bicycle. I'm glad you could convince yourself but I'm not buying a ticket. (Exception: The 6'5, 250# guy; I hadn't thought of the large size human issue. :))

To the guy with the X-5: If you are taking it off road then that is the rare case of a good use of a luxo SUV. (If you stop for a speed bump I will still take a pot shot at you) If the people who owned them were willing to take them out and USE them I wouldn’t have an issue with them. It’s lucky for you that they are building a lot of tonnage of them for the suburbanites. I personally think that most people that really use SUVs for offroading or pickups for hauling would be happier if they were pre scratched and dented at delivery. Then you could stop worrying that it’ll get scratched and start using it for its intended purpose.

Fun note from the Autox course: What’s the difference between nailing a cone with a 911 and a Cayenne?
In a 911 you hear a "Thuwhapp..." with a "thunka, thunka, thunk" as the cone travels back under the car.
In a Cayenne all you hear is the "Thuwhapp". (ran over a lot of cones in search of the elusive "low time") :D

I'm praying for 6" of snow in Orange County. I want to sit and laugh at everybody... including the fools in their SUVs. :p

Wayne

wifees ride
 

I too Bashed the ugly Cayenne, Never in a Million years, I said.
It's not good looking at all. All of my friends agreed.
Between the 7 of our households there are now 3 Cayennes and 3 Touregs. Don't drive one, or should I say, let your wife drive one or your Garage may look like this..... Below.
Don't knock it to you drive it. I also got a screamin deal on mine. It replaced a Allroad that was a Lemon.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1108733091.jpg

OK, I just can't take it any more! The line "Any non-offroad excuse for an SUV... I'm glad you can convince yourself, but I'm not buying a ticket" has pushed me over the edge!

OK, so maybe I'm not 6'5". So what?

I've got a dog that weighs 175#. Earlier comments would say that I should put him in a station wagon or a minivan.

Hmmm... rear wheel drive in a minivan. But it's so damned hard to find parts for that Corvair Greenbriar these days, And the VW?... How much can I pull with one of those?

OK, so let's go to a station wagon... I'm sure I can find a RWD wagon... Let's see, there's the Mercedes, and the 5 series BMW... If I had $50K. No, let's drop to the 3 series BMW... Sure, I can get one of those for maybe $35K, or maybe the Audi AllRoad for $45K... But that Saint Bernard will be mighty cramped back there.

And I know FWD is better than it used to be. So the torque steer is less, but still there, and it seems counter-intuitive to me that all the steering, all the driving, and most of the braking be done on the same end. So I don't WANT FWD. Not ever.

And towing! No, I don't do "serious towing". If I did, I'd get a dually or a Freightliner. But I've got a flatbed to pull around cars to the body shop and whose engines are being worked elsewhere (and has come in handy in saving freinds and myself towing charges a time or two, there's a small sailboat sitting in the back yard, and the "open space" of an SUV, in addition to being very comfortable for the dog, has been a great place to put the saddle, or a few sails, or any other piece of miscellany I may come across. Sure, a pickup truck would have done the same thing, but do you want to really find out about uncontrolled oversteer? No weight at all put over back wheels (i.e. an empty bed) over stiff springs meant to hold another seven hundred pounds or so... now that's oversteer! And you're not getting it back.

And driving in snow? Well, all I'll say to that is there's a Kevin Bacon movie out there somewhere that I was once dragged to, where he's wandering around Kenya trying to find a small village, and he's told "That place is not worth sh..ing on" and he responds: "I'm from Buffalo, don't tell me about places not worth sh..ing on". I grew up just outside Buffalo myself (Cheektowaga, if you feel a need to be pedantic), so you don't have to tell me about either places not worth sh..ing on, or about driving in the snow. I know a thing or two about both.

If you really need to know, smoothness, lightness, and a decent knowledge of what you can and cannot do will get you through a Buffalo winter in a 911, 924S and a Corvette. BTDT.

So the argument that "there's no reason for an SUV" cuts no ice with me, because it clearly ignores history. Remember the 80s? Everyone was forcing us into those "cars" (I don't know what else to call them, but a '57 Chevy sure would be offended to be put in the same class), and they didn't do half the things they should have... too small, no towing, all the things mentioned above... Sure there were still big RWD wagons, but they had their own "issues"... and someone noticed that a Jeep Cherokee or an S-10 Blazer were really good at doing all the things that Buick Roadmaster Wagon with the "tailgunner" third row seat used to do... and the sales started. Then the marketing started, and as time went by, demand for them went up... Not only did all manufacturers have a vested interest in making them, they are PUBLICLY TRADED COMPANIES. They had a fiduciary duty to their shareholders.

Porsche Cars AG is also a publically traded company. It's not a GmbH any more. That's not a total reason for a Cayenne (I can't afford one anyway), but it goes a long way to explaining it. It's also an R&D company, by the way, a fact that goes unnoticed.

And as far as being offended by the "posers" in their SUVs (6 inches of snow in OC? Yeah, you guys can't even drive in the rain, that's another thing I learned in my five years of living there)... no, I'm not offended. Not by that, not by the guys in their Ferraris, or their AMG Mercedes that will never see the Autobahn, or even by the guy with the M3 who can't tell you the difference between oversteer and understeer, or the guy in the Jaguar who wouldn't know an overhead cam if you hit him in the head with one. They made a market decision with their own money, and it's still a free country.

You can hate the Cayenne if you want, but if you really want to decide what kind of cars Porsche should make, buy enough shares in the company to take it private again. You can hate SUVs if you want, but they do fill a niche, and I have one next to the four other cars I own. I don't care. But stop lecturing me on what I need, stop telling me what I should or should not have, and while you're at it, quit whining over what others choose to do with their own funds. Considering that as we sit here and idly chat, there's a web forum going on somewhere calling you an idiot because no one needs a sports car, and all those gearheads should have their toys outlawed and be forced to drive electric cars and public transportation, the irony has lost all of its entertainment value... And you're boreing me to tears.

Don Z:

I could not have said it any better.

Bravo, and thank you.

Best,

Kurt

Sorry, but there is just no reason for the Cayenne to exist. Porsche is a sports car company. Always has been.

The Cayenne came about because Wendelin Wiedeking, then head of Porsche, was a marketing maven and not a sports car devotee, and he needed a way to make Porsche profitable.

There's been a lot of talk about how Porsche is now profitable when they were in dire straits for awhile. Why not devote the enormous amount of resources wasted on the Cayenne to something useful and positive instead, like a 914-like entry level sports car that people could actually afford.

Every racing and sporting Porsche ever made is cheapened by Wiedeking's bean counterish pandering to the bottom line. The thing is an abomination and just has no place in Stuttgart...

ianc

Re: TechArt
 

I'm going to yak.

Re: TechArt
 

looks like a dodge dorkota/durango with third world dentistry!

Don Z.... I have a Bullmastiff, a wife, and a daughter (not necessarily in order of importance), and I agree that no vehicle other than an SUV or full sized station wagon will allow us all to travel together.

I don't know why the full sized wagon became extinct (up until it died 2 years ago I had a Chevy Caprice Wagon ala Clark Griswold) and the SUV and minivan were born. I can only speculate that ride height and better visibility for shorter female drivers was a marketing factor. In any event, a family with a large dog will require a vehicle of this type....it's just a question of which one...and for some the Cayenne fits them. I don't begrudge them. I prefer the Toyota LC. Their money their choice, my money my choice.

I too bashed the cayenne until my wife wanted one. every time i take it to the market all other people's wives wanted one. I must say it performed outstanding. however, i'm still waiting to catch the many of the bugs that this car is so far known for. i personally don't care for it too much as i am a driver of 83sc since 85. still have it looking for a vram motor to put in it. aw

Hmm, I have a Nissan Pathfinder that I use all the time to haul parts and engines for my other cars. I would never want to be without a truck for hauling stuff. I can't imagine how difficult life would be if I only had the 911 or even a sedan...

-Wayne

The 5-Series Sport Wagon is the best out there, in my opinion. I tried, but I couldn't convice my wife that a wagon was "cool." We got a 528i with the sport package instead.

The problem with a wagon (and a Cayenne) is that they are still small and have very limited towing capacity (something that I require).

-Wayne

I would buy one. Just in case anyone is keeping score ;)

These things kick ass, there is no way around it. Would I ever be without an aircooled 911? No. But that doesnt mean I wouldnt buy a Cayenne if I had the money. I would use it to tow my track car. I wont have to worry about being able to afford anything I just mentioned for a long time though.

I'm working on the same sale right now...

I hear them and Targas are real nice. Until I win the lotto or my roof rusts through I wouldn't know. http://www.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/explode.gif

if you want to buy a family ride, might as well be porsche. i love porsches. more money they make , there's more money for their research. more money for research, better tech back into the product, hopefully. aw

__________________________________

'83 911 sc coupe bronze
'04 cayene s black