Nearly three years after its introduction, the Porsche Cayenne no longer seems like such an incongruous idea. Porsche's sport-utility vehicle has quickly become part of the automotive landscape. The car-buying public has demonstrated its appreciation of the Porsche brand beyond the company's familiar sports cars, and Porsche dealerships are pleased by all the SUVs moving off their lots.
Longtime Porsche enthusiasts may have had the most difficult adjustment. For five decades before the Cayenne, their favorite car company carved its niche among automotive giants with quick, agile sports cars built on values diametrically opposed to those represented by big, strapping SUVs. It speaks to our changing automotive tastes, if not the changing car business, that Porsche was compelled to invest in an SUV and a new factory to build it.
With time and exposure, most fans of Porsche sports cars have come to appreciate the Cayenne as a true Porsche. The company's SUV is technically slick and remarkably fast, as Porsches are supposed to be, with on-road handling that belies (though does not defy) its mass. The Cayenne also delivers what most SUV buyers demand, starting with more cargo space than the typical sedan, more than enough capability for light off-highway use and impressive towing capacity. For style, pure performance and a balance of sport-utility virtues, the Porsche Cayenne is tough to beat.
Porsche hasn't been sitting still since Cayenne's launch in 2003. In 2004, Porsche introduced a V6 model that opened Cayenne to a much larger group of buyers. For 2005, it has added useful standard equipment and introduced new option packages. Most significantly, it offers Cayenne for the first time with something loyalists insist every Porsche needs: a 6-speed manual transmission.
But like many Porsches, the Porsche of SUVs can still be very expensive. The price spread across the Cayenne line is more than $50,000. A loaded Cayenne Turbo can crack the $100,000 barrier, and that alone will knock it off most shopping lists. Yet even the well heeled can be value conscious. Many buyers who can afford a Cayenne will find much of the performance and all the satisfaction of use or ownership for half that $100,000 price. The Cayenne will be truly appreciated by a relative handful of SUV buyers with exacting demands or unshakable brand loyalty. We might call them connoisseurs. In that respect, too, the Cayenne is a lot like most Porsches before it.