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Is Porsche about to jeopardise its future with the Cayenne?
Safety aside (as always), the Cayenne will sell. Plenty of posh Porsche posers will love seeing their Cayenne and Carrera snuggling together in a darkened garage. I find the concept incestuous and redundant. Stick snow tires on a Carrera 4 and you've got a four-passenger car that makes normal saloons seem like Ice Capades rejects. The Cayenne adds elevation to the equation, but it also introduces mass. Drivers will be able to see into next week, but they'll constantly be out-handled by smaller, lighter machines. Still, as a capitalist cheerleader who once owned a TVR, I can hardly begrudge buyers a car they need like they need satellite-controlled headlights that swivel to follow the road. I'm more concerned about the Cayenne's effect on Porsche.
Too Much Money
The Cayenne is a sign that Porsche is making too much money: £5,385 per car. This phenomenal, seemingly unstoppable success has given Porsche Hitlerian hubris. OK, we've done Europe. Let's invade Russia! OK, we've done sports cars. Let's take on GM, Ford, Chrysler, Land Rover, Mercedes, BMW, Toyota and Mitsubishi! The fact that Porsche can't make enough Boxsters and Carreras to satisfy demand seems to have escaped the notice of their Bored of Directors. Lest they forget, the upcoming, V10-powered GT will put the company toe-to-toe with Ferrari's F60. With the Cayenne, Porsche doesn't blink so much as sneeze. Is this really the same company that agonised for years about making a four-door 928? It's as if they decided to apply their motor sport heritage to designing brief cases. Oh wait, they have.
The process of applying brand values to increasingly disparate products is called brand extension. Like hair extensions, you think you're getting something better. You're not. Mercedes, once proud producer of bank vaults on wheels, slaps its star on downmarket tat. The next thing you know they're making cars so nasty they're called Chryslers. And BMW's product range may lead the casual observer to believe that a carmaker can do it all, but I doubt they've ever tried to corner a Z3 on a greasy roundabout. Mercedes, BMW and Porsche will all learn that extending a brand damages your roots. Sooner or later, they'll all have the economic equivalent of a bad hair day.
Focus
A successful carmaker must have Focus. Just ask Ford. All their cars are sold on value for money. Maintaining this single-mindedness imposes natural limits on a brand's potential. Ford will never beat Bentley; value for money is not exactly the luxury car buyer's first concern. Similarly, you'll never see a fifty-acre field filled with pre-registered Bentleys. So what's the point of the Cayenne? It may add a zero Porsche's balance in the short term, but it's an evolutionary dead end. In the 4X4 market, Land Rover owns the high ground, where people still care whether a car can climb a tree (or at least looks as if it can). Ford and Chrysler own the low-road, where middle-class Moms have better things to spend their money on than an off-roader than can hurtle her brood down a highway at 155 miles per hour. The Cayenne will be smack bang in the middle, scrabbling for purchase in a tiny niche, forever fighting off Mercedes' ML and BMW X5.
Meanwhile, carmakers that focus all their efforts on creating machines that go like Hell will continue to thrive. As long as Peter Wheeler shovels massive grunt into lightweight bodies, there will be a TVR hovering around at the bottom of the J D Power survey. As long as Lotus makes cars that corner like roller coasters, TVR will have suitable company on that list. There will always be a hard core of wealthy enthusiasts who believe that driving "off-road" means one thing: they've lost control of their sports car. Every man-hour Porsche spends on the Cayenne-designing, marketing, servicing, etc.- is one man-hour less for maintaining and extending their dominance in the sports car market. In other words, the Cayenne is a waste of time.
Peril
At the end of the fiscal year, the best thing a world-class sports car maker like Porsche can make is… wait for it… sports cars! Porsche ignores common sense at its peril. Which reminds me; didn't Lamborghini once build a four-wheel drive thingy? Oh yes, now I remember: the LM02. It was an awesome beast, powered by a 420bhp V12. That was 1986, just before Lamborghini lost their independence. Again. |
User review:
I have never driven a Porsche so slowly in my life. Of course, it was broken. Please note: it wasn’t the company’s fault. When the nice man from Porsche handed me the key to the Cayenne S, the box fresh SUV looked more than ready to show the world that the Sultans of Stuttgart can build a damn fast, fine-handling truck.
At first, the aesthetically challenged Cayenne S blasted down the Spanish pavement with reasonable aplomb. That said, the coil spring suspension reminded me of a drum-tight trampoline. But hey, not even the Germans can tie down an SUV to the point where it can blast around corners, without falling over or ploughing straight ahead, while providing Jaguar ride quality. The best thing that can be said about the Cayenne S’ on-road comfort is that the BMW X5 4.6 Sport is a lot worse.
Cornering in the Cayenne is also a distinctly non-sedan experience. Flinging her through a series of curves, I could feel the Cayenne’s advanced suspension, drive train and electro-mechanical brain struggling to do the impossible. I’m happy to report that the Cayenne can corner safely at a fair old whack. But it’s a Pyrrhic victory. You’d never, ever fling Porsche’s truck around for the sheer Hell of it. It’s not one tenth as much fun to drive as a bog-standard Boxster.
Joining the highway, I floored it. The engine kicked down, the tach needle soared towards the redline and… nothing. As the 4.5 litre V8 searched for power, it didn’t roar like a beast unleashed. It was more like a well-choreographed cheer. When the charisma-free 340bhp power plant finally changed up a gear, the Cayenne found the missing oomph and we were off.
Ta-da! Porsche’s newborn behemoth can cruise at 140mph! German autobahners will be impressed. The Cayenne’s target market, the Americans, will be more concerned about the stereo, which is excellent, and the plastics, which are dire.
When I tired of listening to gale force wind roar, I stabbed the brakes. My mint shot out of my mouth and ricocheted off the windshield. It may take the Cayenne S a while to get going, but it takes no time whatsoever for it to stop.
So far, so what? Anyone with a basic knowledge of physics knows the best place to find SUV fun is off-road. Unfortunately, Porsche had closed its off-road course. BUT there was this gravel track running parallel to the highway. AND we were driving on the wrong highway, in the wrong direction. SO, when we turned around, why not have a quick go on the dirt? What harm could it do?
Sweet Mother of Porsche Traction Management, the Cayenne loves a loose surface! I was accelerating, cornering and stopping at fantastic speeds, without a hint of wheel spin or tail wagging. The formerly annoying spring suspension made the mixed gravel as comfortable as a feather mattress. A lake masquerading as a puddle couldn’t impede our progress, or mute braking power. And the engine— Hell, we were waving at motorway traffic as we passed.
Endorphined by my discovery of the Cayenne’s raison d’etre, I drove straight onto what looked like a hard-packed dirt field. The Cayenne slid thirty feet before sinking up to its axles in mud. Oh, so that’s why they closed the off-road course!
Not good. We were miles from anywhere. No mobile phone, farmer’s tractor or credible explanation for our “deviation” from the designated test route. There was nothing to do but engage the locking differential and try to extricate the Cayenne from my stupidity.
Cue wheel spin, flying mud and a sinking sensation both figurative and literal. And yet, with a bit of rocking, we got out. This, with on-road tires. As a veteran mud-plugger, I was deeply impressed.
Unfortunately, my release from the Spanish quagmire had embedded fist-sized rocks in the tires. As we wobbled back to base at the Porsche equivalent of a walking pace, I hoped my German hosts would view our off-road adventure as an acceptable attempt to test their SUV’s mettle.
Discretion being the better part of valour, I handed the S’ key to the Slovenian journalists and took off in a Cayenne Turbo. All I have to say about the Turbo is this: it adds massive horsepower to the equation, rides on vastly superior air suspension, costs a crib and guzzles gas fast enough to damage America’s balance of payments.
Will the Cayenne damage the Porsche brand? Yes and no. On one hand, their SUV is a betrayal of the company’s core values. It makes a mockery of their hard-earned sports car street cred. On the other hand, I reckon the Cayenne is the fastest and most capable off-roader— off-road— that money can buy. I want one, but for the wrong reason.
Robert Farago