Category: Sporting 4x4s 
Price Range: £36,801 to £75,137
Porsche image and engineering, fine on-road behaviour, surprising off-road ability.
Not as exciting or economical as you'd like - and is an Audi-engined SUV really a Porsche?
A well-engineered, quality product, though the world doesn't really need it.
Just a few years back, the mere suggestion of a diesel-engined Porsche would have met with ridicule. Yet here we are: 2009, and such a vehicle has indeed joined the Porsche line-up.
The motoring world may not be quite ready for an oil-burning 911 (though an engineer somewhere has no doubt thought of the possibility) but in the Cayenne SUV, a diesel engine makes more sense.
Sadly, Porsche has not gone the distance and, Subaru-style, developed its own 'Boxer' diesel engine to its individual, distinctive formula. Instead, it has simply annexed a 240bhp/405 lb-ft 3.0 V6 from its colleagues at Audi, an engine fitted in both Q5 and Q7 SUVs as well as in the closely-related Volkswagen Touareg.
This piezo-injection engine has been specifically tweaked for the Cayenne, of course, with modifications including variable-turbine geometry turbo tech as in the 911 Turbo and 911 GT2, and the Cayenne Diesel also gets a unique exhaust system and a more sound-proof windscreen to cut out any diesel clatter.
The Cayenne Diesel comes with six-speed Tiptronic S automatic transmission as standard, featuring a sequential-shift function. Prices start from £39,404, to include a day's off-road driving and instruction at the Porsche Driving Experience Centre, Silverstone.
