Category: Large 4x4s 
Price Range: £36,801 to £75,137
Impressive on-road performance, exemplary body control with the PDCC system, fantastic engines.
Expensive, thirsty - and not exactly kind to the environment.
An improvement on the original, but will still be hated by many.
For a car with such bulk, the Cayenne drives very well indeed. Key to this is the new Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control (PDCC), an optional active anti-roll system that works in conjunction with the air suspension system to reduce body movements when cornering. Through a variety of sensors in the car, PDCC determines when the Cayenne is cornering and builds up resistance in the air suspension to counteract this - which means the body of the Cayenne stays exactly horizontal up to lateral forces of 0.65g to provide a more comfortable ride.
The driver has a commanding view out of the airy cabin and, while the manual six-speed gearbox provides much better control of the car, most will choose the Tiptronic S automatic system. It has steering-wheel mounted buttons instead of paddles, so will take a while to get used to, although it does a sterling job left to its own devices in fully automatic mode.
The Cayenne masks its two-tonne-plus weight well, with the steering nice and light while also giving good feedback. In normal driving conditions, power is split between the front and rear wheels in a 38:62 split, although 100% of power can be directed to either axle as required. There's more grip than you could ever wish to have on offer and it would take a seriously ham-fisted attempt to get the Cayenne really out of shape. A number of electronic aids keep you on the road.
Although Porsche knows that very few of its owners (in the UK at least) will ever take their Cayenne through any demanding off-road situation, if they do, the Cayenne should make a reasonable job of it. In low range and up to speeds of 22mph, the PDCC system allows for extreme articulation of the axles by completely separating the two sides of the anti-roll bars, allowing for large rocks and boulders to be negotiated.
Three engines are offered - a 3.6-litre V6, 4.8-litre V8 plus a twin-turboed version of the V8. Porsche makes no excuses for not offering a diesel variant, but will be offering a hybrid version (developed with VW and Audi) by the end of the decade. All three engines feature Direct Fuel Injection, which improves the efficiency, power and torque of the engines compared to their predecessors.
The best engine for performance and all-round driveability is the 385bhp 4.8-litre V8 in the Cayenne S. It will carry the Cayenne S and five occupants to 62mph in 6.6secs (6.8secs Tiptronic S) and on to a 156mph top speed. Torque is a massive 369lb-ft at 3,500rpm so you don't have to work the engine too hard to experience the strong acceleration.
The Cayenne Turbo is, of course, faster, taking just 5.1secs to reach 62mph onto a 171mph top speed, which is blisteringly quick for such a large vehicle - you have the 500bhp 516lb-ft twin-turbo 4.8-litre V8 to thank for that. This speed does however come at the expense of driveability, as the Turbo never feels at home unless its being let off the lead, at town speeds it can be difficult to keep the engine and automatic gearbox in a happy medium together. Out on twisty roads the gearbox either changes up too early, dropping you out of the torque band, or severely downshifts just at the point at which the turbos are spooling up, catapulting you along at speeds you might not have wanted.
The 290bhp V6 does a reasonable job of getting the Cayenne moving, with 62mph coming up in 8.1seconds and top speed of 141mph.
