Porsche 2008 Cayenne Turbo

Wall Street Journal - June 22, 2007

...Look back a decade, and a 400-horsepower engine was an oddity,
strictly the province of six-figure exotic sports cars that rarely saw
the road. Today, Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche sell all manner
of sedans, station wagons and SUVs with this kind of power, mass-
produced daily-drivers priced in the five figures. What's more, this
mine-is-bigger-than-yours contest shows no sign of nearing its limit,
as recent introductions of several 500- and even 600-horsepower models
attest.

Among the newcomers stands a reworked-for-2008 Porsche Cayenne Turbo
http://snipr.com/cayenne_turbo which hits that absurd 500 mark, thanks
to a bigger 4.8-liter, twin-turbocharged V8 with direct fuel injection.
Porsche claims its top-of-the-range sport-utility vehicle now has a top
speed of 171 miles per hour and can accelerate from zero to 60 in 4.9
seconds, despite weighing nearly 5,200 pounds. The only possible
justification for spending the $94,595 it costs to park one in your
driveway is hubris.

Indeed, press the Cayenne Turbo's new "sport" button to punch up the
throttle response and firm up the suspension, goose the throttle, and
you're Dennis Tito. Behind the wheel of this truck it certainly feels
like you can conquer space and time, thanks in large part to a new
optional chassis-control system that uses hydraulic motors to twist the
vehicle's antisway bars, countering body roll. Back-seat passengers may
lose their lunch, but the new Cayenne Turbo corners even more like a
true Porsche than its predecessor.

That one already was the ne plus ultra of sporty SUVs. Cost
considerations meant Porsche wasn't about to change it much beyond the
engine and suspension upgrades. So the new model uses the same basic
body structure, and it still looks like a bloated Porsche 911 coupe
with an extra set of doors. Similarly, the interior continues on as a
supersized version of the 911's. With acres of leather and suede
covering nearly every interior surface, it's like driving around in a
Western-wear shop. New headlights set into a new front-end design and
some tweaks to the aerodynamic bits at the back are the other
significant changes, helping the Cayenne Turbo cut a sleeker path
through the air, thereby reducing its coefficient of drag from 0.39 to
0.35. Oh, and there's a new power liftgate -- don't all you Cayenne
owners rush out to trade up at once.

The SUV is the first 2008 model-year vehicle I've tested. As such, the
Cayenne Turbo's fuel economy -- now there's an oxymoron -- deserves
special mention, since the EPA has revised its estimates to better
reflect faster driving speeds and air-conditioner use, among other
factors. This is going to reduce stated fuel economy across the board,
even for 2008s that are mechanically identical to last year's models.
(That's not the case here.) The new Cayenne Turbo's official EPA rating
is 12 mpg in the city, 19 mpg on the highway and 14 mpg combined. By
comparison, the 2006 Cayenne Turbo -- there was no 2007 model -- was
rated at 13 city, 18 highway and 15 combined under the EPA's old system.

In the real world, I got 14.6 mpg over nearly 800 miles of driving,
with the preponderance of that on the highway. A few acceleration runs
and a day spent doing errands dragged that number down some, but it's
unreasonable to expect to get 19 mpg out of a Cayenne Turbo, the new
EPA highway estimate. Porsche insists the new model returns up to 11%
better highway fuel economy than its predecessor, which may be true in
a laboratory, but not with any normal person driving. Definitely not
with the vehicle in "sport" mode, which fixes the electronic throttle
control's sluggishness and the six-speed automatic transmission's
refusal to use first gear. The thing is, the Cayenne Turbo's 516 lb.-
ft. of torque is OxyContin-addictive, and once those turbos spool up,
it burns gas like a refinery fire...