There are times when your SUV just isn’t fast enough. This isn’t one of those. Behind the wheel of the Cayenne Diesel, every reaction is just that much quicker. There may be two tons of steel and rubber beneath you, but every part of the vehicle seems to have been massaged to make it stronger and faster.
The Cayenne is a well thought-out product. It is probably the only SUV that would satisfy a 911 owner who wants a family vehicle, and by the same token an excellent starting point for new Porsche owners who perhaps need to justify their purchase into the brand with something more practical.
Of all the Cayenne variants, the Diesel is the most practical thanks to its efficient, powerful engine that runs on the same juice as the jeepneys, Forwards, and monster buses that it will jostle with on the highway. The
Stepping on the stiffly-sprung accelerator calls up progressive levels of acceleration. It does start gently and progresses rapidly towards illegal by the time your foot reaches the carpet. If the engine happens to be hovering around the 2000 rpm mark, gratification is instant. Cars that were beside you are suddenly just blips in the tiny rear view mirrors. Redline is 5300 rpm: high for a diesel, quite low for a Porsche. Not to worry-the stupendously good eight-speed automatic transmission snappily shifts to a higher gear to resume acceleration. We wouldn’t call it seamless-just very quick, so much that watching the red tachometer needle dip always elicits a smile.
The tachometer is front and center, in the traditional five-gauge Porsche layout. The smaller speedometer is next on the left, and next are the oil gauges-both pressure and temperature. The gauge on the right of the tach is a digital screen that can display trip computer, tire pressure, audio, or navigation as desired. The right-most gauge is for fuel and coolant temperature. Secondary controls are laid out on the center console in the biggest festival of buttons this side of an Airbus. There are more switches on the ceiling panel near the rear-view mirror. The system does make access to the wanted function quick once you get used to the layout. We would have wanted some tactile markers to distinguish buttons such as sport mode that would make them identifiable without having to look at them.
Seats are well-padded sport armchairs, with good support for both front and rear passengers. The rear passengers have plenty of knee and foot space, with minimal intrusion from the center tunnel. Even with the seats up, the cargo space is a roomy 618 liters, expandable to 1728 liters. The rear seat can fold in a 40:20:40 split.
Porsche’s 3.0-liter V6 diesel engine packs twin turbos and of course common-rail direct injection. It delivers 262hp and 580 Nm, good for a sprint to 100kph in 7.3 seconds. Top speed is 221 kph.
Handling, whether putting around the village corners or taking a flyover at speed, inspires utmost confidence. All four wheels are driven, with a default rear-biased torque distribution (58% to the rear wheels). Front double wishbones and rear multi-link suspension provide high levels of grip, despite the car’s considerable ride height. An air suspension system allows for five different ride height settings, from an extreme off-road setting to a loading level that lowers the car’s rear bumper. The difference is palpable from behind the steering wheel. We preferred the lowest driving setting to give the Cayenne a more nimble feel. The dampers can be set from a firm but not jarring Sport Plus to a softer, pothole-taming Comfort setting.
The exterior of the Porsche is refreshingly simple. There’s no extraneous decoration, just all form following function. Peeking out from the 19-inch alloys are huge six-piston front disc brakes and four-pot rear discs. Braking, as with all Porsches, must be experienced to be believed.
As long as you’re gentle on the throttle, which requires considerable will power, the Porsche can do double-digit km/liter figures. Even in heavy traffic, at around 7km/liter, it would put a midsize sedan to shame, fuel efficiency wise. We wouldn’t go so far as to call the Cayenne diesel practical in the absolute sense, no matter how fuel-efficient it is. After all, you can buy four or five completely acceptable brand-new midsize diesel SUVs for the price of one of these. But there’s no better SUV for making miles disappear. It even did the trick of making a quite excellent weekend whiz by all too quickly.
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