I have no understanding whatsoever of why you’d buy a Porsche Cayenne of any variety. Let me just get that off my chest. I do wonder whether the Cayenne buyer goes to the dealership, sees a 911 and then says ‘no wait, I need something bigger than this‘. That’s fair enough, the 911, whilst iconic, doesn’t exactly feature the most roomy cabin, or indeed masses of luggage space.
However, why buy a Porsche at all if you aren’t going to buy a 911, or, at a push, a Cayman or Boxster? It beggars belief. Especially when the vehicle in question here resembles a BMW X-3 (what an ugly car). Even the Hummer-like dimensions of the BMW X-5 are (slightly) more appealing.
This brings me to why people must be buying the Cayenne. They want unbelievable, balls to the wall; I can destroy anything on the road performance. They also want to have a Porsche badge on the front of the car – whilst also being able to use it as a Chelsea Tractor.
This brings us to the latest offering from Porsche, the Cayenne GTS. This car is big. It is also quick, with a front-slung 4.8 litre turbo-charged monster just waiting to be unleashed from your right foot. It is certainly a license-loser as well. But what makes it different is that Porsche has done something remarkable in this package – they have designed a 4×4 that has some of the best handling of any car in the class, and many that aren’t.
Granted, it isn’t going to win any awards. Then again, if you can afford a car like this (£54,350), then I can’t imagine you’ll have problems with the road tax fund license – nor any issue with driving such a monster. Nonetheless, whichever side of the ‘green’ fence you fall on, 361 grammes per kilometre is quite a bit, I’m sure you agree.
Of course, even the richest of drivers can get annoyed – a touch of the road rage if you will. No doubt, those who drive the Porsche Cayenne GTS will feel a little bit of this every time they have to pull up at the garage. The reason being, they’ll be doing this fairly often. At an ‘official’ level of 18mpg, that’s not good news. Put down the power though, and you could even be looking at dropping to a single digit. Not good.
Yes, you’ve all been waiting patiently through this critique, so I may as well give it to you. The figures are 0-60 in a scary, very fast (for this size vehicle) 6.1 seconds. The big V8 that churns out 405bhp will also propel you beyond 157 miles per hour – would you do that in such a big machine though?
Of course, you can kit out your Porsche with the variety of latest safety technology, such as Active Suspension Management (a good idea for those who are considering driving it on anything but an A road at speed) and Dynamic Chassis electrics that will make the car hold the road even better.
The car (as you can see) looks quite mean, low and aggressive – all of which gives you an even clearer idea that this is not simply a ‘standard’ 4×4. You won’t be driving up any hills in this.
So what’s the point? I’m still not that clear to be honest. It is big on the outside, but there’s not a vast amount of space on the inside. It is, however, incredibly powerful. Few things on the road will keep up with it. But why? This is a question I’m still asking myself, and in today’s ‘we do really care about the planet’ environment, this beast seems to have made itself obsolete already. Maybe that’s why we should salute it…
I’ve never quite been able to figure this one out either but it certainly seems to be a smart piece of business for Porsche and for petrol stations 🙂
I bought a six speed GTS back in march. I couldn’t be happier. In fact, I traded in my 911 and BMW 530 for it. I have no regrets. Why did I do it? Because this car is so much fun to drive. It’s fun. Really really fun. I am having so much fun driving this car I can’t stand it. There is no other reason why I bought the car. You can’t justify blowing 100k USD on any car. So if you do it you’d better be having fun with it. Before I got the GTS, my 911 would sit in my garage while my wife and I drove the kids around in our 2007 MDX (great car also, by the way). Now, we hop in the GTS and Daddy gets to have some fun too. Believe it or not my kids love the growling sounds!! What does daddy cars say? “Vrooom Vroom” they say. So stop all you over analyzing and justifying.
We buy these cars because they are fun.
Hi Westport,
Thanks for your comment. How though, may I ask, will you counteract your children’s displeasure when the planet is further damaged by your vehicle pushing out huge amounts of CO2 and guzzling as much fuel as possible? Just playing devil’s advocate of course…
There’s no doubt that the Porsche Cayenne is a fun, safe, fast drive. Why not get a Subaru Impreza or Mitsubishi Evo X though? They are just as fast (or faster) and handle far better… This brings me back to the point that it’s all about the badge…
Thanks Butterscotch. I did think about that when I purchased the car. You are no doubt right that this car will not win any awards for its mpg. In fact, my realized mpg is lower than advertised. However, I am not sure you can fit three kids in car seats/boosters in an impreza. Besides, I only drive 4-5k miles per year. My bet is that you spew more Co2 into the atmosphere than I do.
hi there, its impssible with the uel cost nowadays, people who porsches or hire powered cars aree suffering, the end result will be the porsche dealers will suffer and the manufacturers
Hi Steven,
I really doubt that anyone who can afford a car of the price such as the one above is really that concerned about fuel prices. If you can afford to run a £20k plus car, you can probably afford to fuel it. I’d say this is especially true of prestige marques such as Porsche.
On a similar note, a lot of people who own such vehicles will have it as a second car – older Porsches have a lot fewer miles than equivalent ‘average’ cars such as Mondeos or Vectras.
Of course Steven, the point remains that high fuel prices affect us all. However, buyers must adapt because I doubt the government will lower prices soon, even when most of the cost of say £1.10 a litre goes to ‘Her Majesty’.
Hi Mr Butterscotch
I believe porsche are in battle with london over the congestion charges, the goverment are finding ways to spend our earned money and will only come out with another law to pay more tax, i hope porsche show them that they can not push us around
Hi Steven,
You are of course correct – they are filing to be exempt from the congestion charge. It seems a bit silly that the Lexus (L is it?) 600 is when it will still do barely 25mpg – it’s due to the electric engine thrown in as a token.
I personally think that the government should give us all Porsches – if the whole planet is going to hell in a handcart we may as well have fun!