Porsche Cayenne

The Porsche Cayenne has an expressive design upfront that consists of a boxy Grille with black high gloss elements and slats that feature a black coloured finish. The SUV gets a brawny new grille with high gloss black elements that give it a distinctive styling. It comes with new LED headlamps with four-point DRLs that amplifies the sporty and rugged look of the vehicle. The single-piece grille is accompanied by signature headlamps above it at each end. The lower section of the front end has black cladding and a skid plate along with black finished highly contoured air inlets that give it a rugged and sporty look.

At the side, the Cayenne gets a muscular touch that adds a pronounced three-dimensional athletic touch. The Cayenne also has structural reinforcements for better pedestrian safety. The sides have bulky contours across the body that make it look pretty stylish. The SUV gets flared wheel arches along with piano black elements around the windows. It has a bulky design and comes with muscular lines and creases that run across the sides.

At the rear, the vehicle gets LED tail lights that run across the width of the vehicle. The light strip connects the units at the rear and has a section with a black finish that houses the Porsche emblem in chrome. The Cayenne lettering is in chrome too. The lower section of the rear end has black cladding with reflectors that add to the stylish character of the SUV. The Porsche Cayenne measures 4,918mm in length, 1,983mm in width and 1,696mm in height. It has a wheelbase of 2,895mm.

Like the exterior of the vehicle, the interior of the Porsche Cayenne has a stylish look. The dashboard houses a 12.3-inch touchscreen with the latest PCM 6.0 communication system and integrated Wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connectivity. The touch screen mounted above the AC vents also has basic functions that control navigation, media, phone, car settings and the like. Other features that add on to the cool quotient are powered and heated front sports seats, four-zone climate control, wireless phone charging, hands-free parking and 21 individually controlled loudspeakers including an active subwoofer, to name a few.

The cabin of the SUV gets a plush soft-touch leather interior. The multi-spoke steering comes with audio controls for the driver’s convenience. In addition to this, there is an automatic climate control that features individual temperature controls for the driver and front passenger, and separate ones for the rear seats. The seats are well cushioned and are comfortable. The driver seat is height-adjustable and has a memory function, however, to avail massage functions, customers have to spend extra money. 

Apart from the aforementioned features, one of the main highlights of the interior is the heads up display. The Cayenne-specific Heads Up Display presents the driver with additional information for sporty driving. The full-coloured heads up display projects all the valuable information pertaining to the journey directly into the driver’s field of vision. 

The Porsche Cayenne gets a BS6-compliant 3.0-litre turbocharged V6 engine equipped with a twin-scroll turbocharger between the cylinder banks. It delivers 340 PS and churns out a maximum torque of 450Nm between 1,340 and 5,300rpm. The Cayenne also comes with a coasting function that helps return good fuel efficiency figures. As for the transmission, the petrol motor comes paired with an 8-speed Tiptronic S gearbox that is slick.  

In terms of performance, the Porsche Cayenne is an all-rounder. It performs extremely well on highways as well as in city driving conditions. The 450 Nm of torque the engine produces definitely comes in handy while performing tough manoeuvers on an off-road trail. The engine feels refined even at higher RPMs. As a matter of fact, the Cayenne only provides a distant mechanical churn as the RPMs increase. 

The automatic transmission is quick to respond when you need a sudden surge of power. It shifts to lower gears quickly and provides the grunt that is needed to overtake high-speed traffic. The straight-line performance of the vehicle is decent considering the fact that it is a 2.1-tonne machine. The vehicle is also built to withstand the stress encountered while driving off-road thanks to its robust chassis.

The suspension setup of the Porsche Cayenne is on the softer side and it does not get too stiff in the different driving modes as well. Porsche has managed to provide a well-balanced suspension setup that is neither floaty nor stiff.  It comes equipped with adaptive air suspension at the front as well as rear that easily evens out the small bumps on the road when the vehicle is moving at low speeds. At higher speeds, the Cayenne feels planted on the road surface thanks to the PASM system and self-levelling function. Thus, it presents good high-speed stability. 

The engine is good in terms of refinement and the NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) levels are under control as expected from Porsche. The noise from the engine bay does not seep into the cabin even while the motor is running idle. Surprisingly, even though the vehicle weighs over 2-tonne and is bulky in design, the body roll is minimal. This is all thanks to the Porsche’s Dynamic Chassis Control system. The steering is light and provides decent feedback. At higher speeds, the SUV does not lower the confidence of the driver as the steering provides good feedback. The rear-axle steering plays a major role in maintaining stability.

In terms of safety features, the Porsche Cayenne comes with crumple zones which are the key points on the structure of the vehicle that absorb impact in the scenario of a collision. In addition to this, there is an emergency SOS call function that connects the emergency helpline number for immediate assistance in case of an accident.

The SUV also comes equipped with ABS with EBD with remote parking assist. The Cayenne is also offered with safety features such as front-impact airbags, side-impact airbags, overhead airbags, knee airbags, a tyre pressure monitor, lane departure warning, electronic stability control, disc brakes, seatbelt reminder with seatbelt pretensioners and much more

Considering other vehicles in this segment, the Porsche Cayenne has done an excellent job in terms of offering safety as it comes loaded with several active and passive safety features like airbags, ABS with EBD, brake assist, ISOFIX Child Seat Mounts and much more.