Porsche Cayenne 2010 review

Porsche has learnt a lot of lessons from its first foray into the SUV field. To the extent the all-new Cayenne for 2010, that has just gone on sale in Australia, differs significantly from the original. Our initial road test review has impressed us in many ways.

New Porsche Cayenne retains styling elements from the first generation, but looks less like a pumped up Porsche 911 and more like a vehicle in its own right. There are certainly styling cues to the rest of the range, such as the slope of the bonnet, the raised edges of the front guards and the obvious rear guards that create a muscular look. But the Cayenne now stands on its own two feet (own four wheels!) in its shape.

Inside, there's a completely new styling theme that carries strong cues to the Porsche Panamera sports saloon. This is particularly noticeable in the centre console with its array of buttons that carry out many of the commonly used adjustments.

Thankfully the instrument panel is unchanged in its overall theme. The interlocking dials with the prominent tachometer in the middle will be very familiar to Porsche drivers of many years standing.

The new Porsche Cayenne is larger than the old, particularly in the back seat which now provides comfortable space for two adults. The backrest can be adjusted for rake to further let you tailor your space.

Luggage space is slightly more voluminous than before and can be significantly increased by sliding the back seat forwards to create extra length. Up to 160 mm of seat travel is available.

The biggest change of all is that the Porsche Cayenne no longer tries to be a full-on off-road vehicle and doesn't have a two-speed transfer case to provide low range for extreme driving. Like others in the class, such as Mercedes M-Class and BMW X5, the Cayenne is now an on-road wagon with some ability to tackle gentle off-road excursions.

New Porsche Cayenne is an impressive piece of automotive engineering from a company that builds nothing but sports vehicles.

A major advantage of all the changes, particularly doing away with the low-range transfer case is that weight has been decreased by around 12 per cent.

Power comes from a variety of sources: there's a 400 horsepower 4.8-litre V8 engine; the same engine with a turbocharger to increase its output to 500 horsepower; a 3.6-litre petrol V6 with 300 horsepower; a turbo-diesel V6 with a capacity of 3.0 litres that produces 240 horsepower. In metric terms, though the Europeans seldom use these, outputs are 294, 368, 220 and 176 kilowatts.

Though these engines are based on the powerplants seen in the first-generation Porsche Cayenne, they have had so many changes they can be regarded as all-new. Clever engineering has not only raised power and fattened out the torque, but also reduced the fuel consumption and emissions. In fact, fuel savings are as much as 23 per cent.

Drive is constant to all four wheels by way of an eight-speed automatic transmission. The amount of torque to front and rear varies according to driving conditions. Combined with sophisticated electronic dynamics to assist the suspension the Cayenne is amazingly sure footed on the road. Our initial test drives out of Brisbane impressed us not only with the feel and grip of the tyres, but also with the way the vehicle reacted to changes to the steering and throttle control. It has a sharper feel than the previous model, and though not really sedan like in the way it behaves, comes pretty close to it.

But there's more – a hybrid drive system is also offered in the Cayenne S. This uses a 3.0-litre 333 horsepower, 245 kW, supercharged V6 petrol engine and an electric motor. However, the Cayenne S hybrid costs $12,000 more than the equivalent Cayenne S in petrol format – and uses more fuel than the Cayenne turbo-diesel. 

New Porsche Cayenne is an impressive piece of automotive engineering from a company that builds nothing but sports vehicles. It is significantly better than the previous edition and seems sure of racking up sales success. These sales are likely to be not only to owners of first-generation Cayennes, but also to buyers coming out of other German and British marques.

The complete Porsche Cayenne range, with prices (excluding government and dealer charges) is:

Cayenne: $103,500
Cayenne Diesel: $104,500
Cayenne S: $147,900
Cayenne S Hybrid: $159,900
Cayenne Turbo: $239,90