Overview
BEYOND Melbourne’s freeway community and starting a dive into the bust of the Mornington Peninsula on this, the most recent Porsche Cayenne, I’d begun to surprise if the corporate had invested in a bit sly product placement. I don’t suppose they did, however misplaced depend of just-superseded Cayennes within the visitors, at about eight. They appeared to be in every single place.
The brand new Cayenne is after all, on the face of it, not fairly so new; it’s a refresh of structure that started pounding the tarmac in 2017. The ‘refresh’ although, runs deep.
Delicate modifications have occurred outdoors: entrance finish, rear apron, headlights, bonnet, guards and tailgate are new or redesigned, whereas inside there’s a reconfigured digital sprint with components shared with new Taycan. The sprint is now a totally digital, free-standing, 12.6-inch curved show with customisable cluster views.
Then there’s an entire lot extra that’s occurred below the pores and skin, beginning with the return of the V8 engine in Cayenne S, lacking since 2014. It has returned with greater than only a good V8 burble. Energy is up 25kW to 349kW at 6000rpm and an additional 50Nm is now out there, with 600Nm at between 2000 and 5000rpm.
The eight-speed automated stays however Porsche says it has been ‘revamped’.
Brake rotors are actually 410mm entrance and 358mm rear, up 20mm and 28mm respectively.
Normal tools within the $179,500 Cayenne S SUV (there’s additionally a 4-seater Coupe mannequin) is intensive. Highlights embody a panoramic roof, consolation entry, privateness glass, adaptive air suspension, park help capabilities, head-up show, Bose encompass sound audio, adaptive cruise management with emergency help and lane preserve help and an entire lot extra.
The Cayenne S we drove was fitted with 21 choices totalling $54,280, making for a complete value of $233,780 (plus on-road prices). Too lengthy to listing right here, the highlights included two-tone leather-based inside ($8170), Porsche Dynamic Chassis Management ($6870), 21-inch RS Spyder Design wheels in high-glass black and tinted HD-Matrix LED headlights.
Guarantee is three years/limitless, with servicing due at 12 month or 15,000km intervals.
Drive Impressions
On start-up there’s nothing fairly just like the sound of a V8 coming to life, and Porsche like many latest (largely German) manufacturers make it possible for there’s loads of theatre about it. No person standing close to who is aware of something in any respect about automobiles will mistake the chilly begin crackle for something however a high-performance V8.
But past the start-up sequence the engine settles right into a discreet burble; deciding on the rocker gearlever on the left of the instrument cluster to ‘D’ it was then only a matter of nosing the Cayenne out into the visitors, utilizing the signature shouldered guards (suppose conventional 911) to function helpful marker factors to um, not mark the paint. Aspect mirrors are massive, the imaginative and prescient to the edges (when making a pointy 90-degree flip, for instance) is best than many SUVs for gaining readability about what you’re nearly to run over and imaginative and prescient to the rear is generally… terrible, as it’s with nearly all new autos. There’s the rear digital camera view to information you although, after all.
At first blush on the freeway, with visitors starting from log-jammed to then nearly none in any respect, the Cayenne S settled right into a easy, simple travelling companion. The V8 is quiet, the transmission easy, the brakes progressive. The one criticism is that the engine-stop characteristic is a bit sluggish to restart the engine; the work-around is to anticipate transferring on by barely lifting off the brake pedal, which will get the engine fired up, nothing uncommon there.
Seats are supportive, the brand new devices are simple to learn, and fortuitously Porsche hasn’t adopted the development of displaying supporting info in fonts of an nearly unreadable measurement to suit every part on there. Whereas I did fumble round looking for completely different instrument views, in the primary the menus simply merely labored with minimal distraction. Even the contact controls within the centre for local weather management weren’t as troublesome to search out or regulate whereas driving as I imagined they might be.
It’s arduous to search out fault with the inside; it is rather nicely put along with supplies of seemingly higher high quality than some rivals. The one criticism, for those who can name it that, was the inconsistency of grain in materials; from none in any respect within the leather-based on the seats to a little bit of a grained floor on the plastic used on, for instance, the rear seat hinges. However even these had a rubberised coating, as an alternative of old school, arduous povo plastic. Good end result.
Rear occupant house is ample whereas the boot is straightforward to get to and provides a straightforward to load squared off 772-litre house. The spare is below the boot flooring, an inflatable space-saver.
With just a few participating twisting roads to play with, the Cayenne S comes alive, particularly in Sport or Sport + modes. It’s refreshing to drive a brand new automobile, particularly a big SUV, the place the steering responds so nicely to inputs. Need to regulate your line mid-corner to keep away from a relatively nasty pothole? No drawback, the Cayenne will thread its method precisely as you want, inside cause.
Whereas the remainder to 100km/h claimed determine is 5.0sec, it feels a bit slower than that punting this two tonnes-plus SUV up a steep climb, but it surely’s nonetheless not leaving you wanting for an entire lot extra (there’s at all times the marginally insane Cayenne Turbo GT for that) and elsewhere, it feels suitably quick.
With the all wheel-drive grip, glorious air suspension (that is still agency however in some way compliant with it) there’s a lot to love about this set-up. Gasoline consumption on a straightforward largely freeway run averaged 9.5L/100km, not unhealthy when you think about the claimed common consumption is 12.4L/100km.
Regardless that the bottom Cayenne V6 is an effective if not startling entree to Porsche SUV possession and the bonkers Turbo GT a beautiful, theatric last-gasp tackle the easiest of inside combustion efficiency, the candy spot is definitely the Cayenne S V8. It provides a beneficiant dose of the Porsche expertise by way of its efficiency and dealing with with all of the practicality of a giant SUV thrown in.
