Slippery slope
This is a pointless addition to the automotive landscape. Or the Porsche you’ve been waiting years for. Which way you swing will depend on how you view the modern phenomenon of the SUV coupe.
But all subjective baggage needs to be left at the door; the sheer sales figures and profit
margins achieved by chamfering off your 4x4’s roof and sportifying its looks cannot be argued with, no matter how much of an enthusiast’s brand you are. It’s amazing it’s taken Porsche, one of the pioneers of the quick crossover, so long to produce the Cayenne Coupe.
The rear accommodation is now a pair of individually sculpted seats as standard, but you can spec a regular three-person bench at no cost if you need it. The roof is vast panoramic glass as standard, but can be switched to sculptured carbon if you worry about your centre of gravity. The latter comes as part of the pricey and ludicrously named Lightweight Sport Package, which shaves 22kg overall. Admirable if it wasn’t from a two-tonne car.
Engine options are entirely petrol and are topped by the full-fat, 542bhp V8 of the Turbo pictured. With 0–62mph in a launch-controlled 3.9secs, it’s undoubtedly the one to have if you want to fully dig into the Coupe’s lavish excess, not to mention experience the thuggish, occasionally oversteery nature the very best performance SUVs exhibit. If you don’t – and let’s face it, you should buy an M5 or E63 AMG if those driving characteristics are a priority – then the middling Cayenne S, with its 434bhp V6, is the sweet spot of the range.
Beyond that, there’s a dizzying array of chassis and tech options to spend hours of your time (and thousands of your pounds) configuring online, many of them designed to shortcut the dynamic penalties a car so big and heavy can’t help but incur. And, boy, are they necessary: a Cayenne without four-wheel steering, torque vectoring and ceramic brakes really struggles with its heft. Spec them and, around ten grand later, you’ll have a car of quite outrageous agility for its mass.
The same’s true of the regular Cayenne, though, and objectively it’s hard to escape that the Coupe cuts bootspace and headroom (the latter notably) and adds cost and weight (despite looking skinnier) without proffering much in return. Unless, of course, you’re really sold on this class of car. It appears rather a lot of people are.