NEW CAYENNE IN SCOTLAND
Bigger and better, the new Cayenne delivers
Time slows down in the Cayenne Turbo. The last time it did that I was a schoolboy, on a heavy Raleigh Grifter, going down an impossibly steep slope before spotting two trees ahead, not wide enough to accommodate my handlebars. The departure was inevitable, the few seconds stretching into what feels like minutes as lump iron bicycle and child were separated. Forcefully. But, ultimately harmlessly.
Funny thing time, if like everything else around us it is experienced, then it’s surely fluid, or at least open to interpretation. It sure felt like it when I was diving over those handlebars. And it does so now. I’ve just had a similar experience in the Cayenne Turbo.
Porsche’s SUV has always had an extraordinary ability to bend time, conventionally, insomuch as the figures relating to it. A car that’s re-written what a lofty, off-road capable car is able to do on road, the Cayenne Turbo has always been the most freakishly able of a talented range. I’m driving the new, third generation one early, as there was one in Scotland, and Porsche’s PR boss called and asked if I’d like to play the role of delivery driver.
He didn’t need to ask twice, particularly as the starting point was just outside my hometown of Edinburgh. All I needed to do was get it to Porsche Experience Centre, Silverstone, by the end of the day. The route my own choice, and as time slows
down I’m regretting it. There’s a famous story about the original Cayenne Turbo, a German car brought back from the launch event and launched, quite literally, again in the UK. Out of a tank trap, at speed, for a magazine cover photo. The results were spectacular, though destructive enough “never to reach that cover, too.
Time’s playing that trick on me now, I saw the ridge, knew of it even, this road being one I’d actively sought out. The A696 just outside Otterburn and the Cayenne Turbo has taken off. Until the point it did so it had been speeding everything up, the scenery, the arrival time at my eventual destination, but now, from the second I feel the wheels drop to the bottom of the suspension’s reach everything’s started to move very slowly indeed. There are what feel like minutes of hang time, the Cayenne Turbo probably airborne for no more than a second, but as it lands the revs flair and the dashboard lights and chimes like a fairground ride.
I’ve broken it. The transmission has gone into neutral, it’s coasting forward and the drag of time accelerates back to normality to be replaced by that dawning realisation that something is wrong. ‘Don’t be broken, please, not here, not now, not ever. Pleeease’.
The indicators are working, the hazards put on as I roll safely to a stop. ‘Don’t be broken, don’t be broken…’ Only thing for it. Put it in Park, switch it off. Sit for the longest few seconds ever, cross everything then start it up again. It fires. The instruments don’t show anything untoward, no tell-tale warning lights, I reach for the gear selector and pull it back for Drive. It selects, the Cayenne Turbo’s flight causing no more than a mere hiccup.
I had been warned that it was a very early car, and that everything might not be perfect. It’s not the car’s fault though, it’s my enthusiasm. Indeed, if another Cayenne Turbo ever takes that same ridge at the same speed I was doing I’d be amazed, that a result of being caught up in a moment, reliving a favourite drive.
Over 20 years ago, as a student I used to drive between Edinburgh and Newcastle fairly frequently. My then girlfriend was from the ‘toon’, and I used to borrow my parents’
Don’t be broken, please, not here, not now, not ever...
cars and run the 100 miles through Jedburgh in the Scottish borders on the A68 into Northumberland where it becomes the A696. Not in Porsches I might add, much as my 20-year old self wished, though my mum’s Seat Ibiza did at least have System Porsche emblazoned on its cylinder head. Tenuous, I know.
The road has changed little in that time. Indeed, the inevitable speed camera aside it’s exactly as I remember it. It looks a little different from the loftier driving position of the Cayenne, but otherwise every twist, turn, dip and crest is tattooed on my mind. It’s why I’ve brought the Cayenne Turbo this way, as there’s no better road to test a new car on than one you know. And know very well.
The downside is south of Newcastle it’s mostly motorway, worse still the sort of boring, regularly average speed checked monotony that’s increasingly defining distance driving these days. Where better to test the Cayenne’s suite of near autonomous driver aids. Hell though, being in Scotland first means there’s also the chance for a little bit of off-roading, just because, well, no other reason because the Cayenne can.
Few ever will, but like the overspecified Goretex jacket that’s worn in a light shower, the diving watch that’s never been deeper than a dip in the pool or carbon-fibre racing bike that’s used to fetch the papers it’s the fact it can. And the Cayenne, more than any other Porsche defines ‘can’. Off-road, on track, on-road, fast, slow, exciting roads or mundane ones it’s got it all covered. Even W. Rohrl conceded to me once that it’s pretty much the perfect car. He did qualify that by adding, ‘to take skiing’, but anything that’s good in the alps should be good anywhere.
The ultimate GT then, and so it’s proving. This third-generation Cayenne does what all new cars do. Bringing more economy, less weight, more performance, greater equipment and agility, connectivity and, sadly, autonomy. The cabin elevates
the interior to a new level, taking the best haptic touch panelling from the Panamera, allied to the expansive screens containing from driver to centre dash, instruments through to touchscreen entertainment, information and supplementary vehicle controls.
Thankfully, Porsche’s interior people haven’t lifted the Panamera’s interior in its entirety, there’s none of the touch-screen operated air vents, for example, that technological overkill that answers questions nobody ever asked replaced here with conventional controls for the vents. Even so it’s about as far removed from the original Cayenne as it could be, not just for the huge arsenal of technology that’s incorporated into the interior, but the look, feel and quality, too.
Visually there’s familial DNA, Porsche never anything but predictable when it comes to styling. Taking the same evolutionary approach as the rest of the Porsche model range the Cayenne has gown into its skin. The uncomfortable looks of the original have softened in time, the lines finessed, the detailing perfected, making this a car you can genuinely describe as attractive. It owes a lot to its smaller Macan relation and is, thanks to its range-topping Turbo specification, here at its very best looks wise. There’s assertive intent that’s described by its large air intakes, the huge 21-inch wheels, with their staggered widths filling the wheelarches fully, the yellow brake calipers visible behind the alloy’s spokes signalling the fitment of PCCB.
A few weeks earlier I was at the unveil in Stuttgart. Sat now, pushing it up the series of switchback bends that climb up and out of Scotland, I’m wondering if it’s possible to carry more speed, with such incredible composure. There are sports cars that would struggle to keep up, the 4.0-litre bi-turbo V8 petrol engine’s 550hp and 770Nm of torque shrugging off the Cayenne’s weight, the chassis allowing it otherworldly grip, huge traction and fine control. There’s no roll, the
Visually there’s familial DNA, Porsche never anything but predictable
PDCC doing its job, controlling body movement to convince you Porsche’s chassis people have made a pact with ride and handling devils. Nothing this big and heavy should be able to demonstrate such control. The only hint, re-adjusted internals notwithstanding, that the Cayenne Turbo is carrying so much pace is the faint chirrup and squeal from the tyres as the rubber compounds manage the incredible forces though them. The contact patch rolling under those 21-inch wheels is the hardest worked rubber this side of a fetish convention.
Those front wheels are turning in with the sort of urgency you’d usually associate with a trick differential hot hatchback, that immediacy in no small part thanks to the optional fitment of rear-axle steering here.
I’d been forewarned that in Sport and Sport+ the speed at which the rear-wheel steering is increased, though nothing prepared me for the sensation of the Cayenne’s nose tucking in with such urgency. It’s initially unnerving, the rearaxle’s input into the behaviour of that up front feeling unnatural, the initial turn of those rear wheels so abrupt it’s as if the Cayenne pivots beneath you, giving the sensation that the engine could be situated between the axles rather than over the front wheels.
It, admittedly, takes a bit of learning, and, should you not want it to be so abrupt then selecting one of the lesser drive modes winds back the intensity. I’m quickly enjoying it, revelling in its ability to shorten the wheelbase, making light work of tightening radius bends, it giving the Cayenne Turbo agility that’s at odds with the reality of its weight and scale.
If the chassis is a marvel then it’s backed
with an engine that’s more than up to the task of exploiting it. The 4.0-litre bi-turbo is free-revving and willing, its 550hp arriving at 5750rpm. Impressive as that is it’s the torque’s delivery that ultimately defines it, with the full 770Nm delivered at 1960rpm and staying until 4500rpm. That muscularity over such a large proportion of the engine’s operating range, mated to the quick-shifting eight-speed Tiptronic S automatic makes for any gear, any speed access to authoritative speed, this new generation of Cayenne Turbo doing that even more convincingly than those that went before it.
While the 4.0-litre bi-turbo isn’t lacking in its ability to bring mind-bending pace, it doesn’t have quite the crackling, rousing engine note of the old Turbo’s 4.8 unit. It’s a close run thing, and nothing that a little bit of exhaust tuning on Porsche’s part couldn’t address. That’s easy to forgive when you’ve experienced what it’s capable of, what it allows the chassis to demonstrate, the Cayenne Turbo’s ability in the league of the scarcely believable.
As running down the other side of the border road, into Northumberland, the road opens, clear sightlines, in contrast to the tighter, often unsighted bends that made up the first part of the journey. It’s a less frenetic drive as a result, the speed carried not sought and lost as previously, the Turbo in its element in longer, high speed bends, that PDCC suspension coping with any nasty compressions, camber and surface changes as if they’re not there. That’s controlled, rather than removed, the Cayenne still able to communicate what’s happening, remaining engaging and involving despite the huge technical arsenal that’s enabling
The Cayenne Turbo’s ability is in the league of the scarcely believable
it its cross-country ability.
The hundred miles passes quickly, even with that brief, time-bent pause after that too enthusiastically approached crest. The creep of habitation increases, no longer punctuation between enjoyable, challenging and beautiful stretches of road, buildings now line the roadsides to signal that the best of the drive is over. Joining the A1 around Newcastle and Sunderland, down the East Coast of the country with Silverstone my eventual destination, the Cayenne Turbo morphs into a big, luxurious SUV, from the eager, sporting GT it has been over the A68 and A696.
There’s time to unwind, let the engine haul it along unstressed at UK motorway speeds, the various driver aids easing or frustrating depending on your thoughts, for me the active cruise is a useful tool in average-speed sections, but removing elements of control elsewhere with lane keeping systems only creates more problems than it solves. The Turbo arrives at Silverstone, with 330 more miles on its odometer, significantly less fuel in its tank and a driver who’s got even more respect for Porsche’s most talented all-rounder. Progess is a wonderful thing, and easy in a Cayenne Turbo. Incredibly so. PW
The Cayenne morphs into a big luxurious SUV, from an eager, sporting GT