The Porsche Cayenne

The Porsche Cayenne is a large SUV (sports utility vehicle) from German car manufacturer, Porsche. It is available with a choice of petrol engines and has five seats, five doors and four-wheel drive. The Cayenne is available with both manual and automatic (tiptronic) gearboxes. Its four-wheel system can send 100 per cent of the engine's power, in any mix, between the front and rear axles. A low-range gearbox is also standard.

PORSCHE CAYENNE HISTORY

The Porsche Cayenne concept was announced in 1998 and came into production in 2002. It was the first large family-type vehicle that Porsche had made after having a long history of just producing roadsters and sports cars. The Cayenne was co-developed with Volkswagen, who was keen to add a sports utility vehicle to their extensive line-up as a cost-sharing initiative. In terms of design, the Cayenne has many similarities to the VW Touareg and the Audi Q7

TYPES

The Porsche Cayenne is available in five different variants. The entry level model is the standard Porsche Cayenne. Next is the Cayenne S. This is followed by the Cayenne GTS and then there are the two top-of-the-range models; the Cayenne Turbo and Cayenne Turbo S. All of the Cayenne vehicles are powered by petrol engines. The entry level model has a 3.6-litre V6 (232 PS) unit. The S and GTS models use 4.8-litre V8 units (385 and 405 PS). The Cayenne Turbo and Turbo S models use 4.8-litre twin-turbo charged V8 units (500 PS and 550 PS respectively).

DID YOU KNOW?

• Critics originally thought that the Cayenne would be unsuccessful as buyers would not want to buy a vehicle of that nature from a manufacturer with such an extensive sports car heritage. Porsche made a prediction that they would sell around 80,000 Porsche Cayennes, but in actual fact they have sold over 150,000 to date.

• The Cayenne is the first V8-engined vehicle built by Porsche since 1995, when the Porsche 928 was discontinued. Porsche are set to introduce a diesel engine into the Cayenne line-up from March 2009. This engine is to be sourced from VW and will be a 300 PS 3.2-litre V6.

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