The $86,000 Porsche Cayenne Coupé is the newest ultra-luxury fastback SUV to stare down rivals BMW and Mercedes-Benz
Matthew DeBord
- I tested a 2020 Porsche Cayenne Coupé, a fastback SUV that's the entry point for this new kind of ute from Porsche.
- My $86,090 test vehicle had a 335-horsepower, turbocharged V6.
- The Cayenne Coupé also boasted a beautifully made, if minimalist, interior that's plenty spacious enough for four or even five adults.
- The Cayenne Coupé is superb — and better looking than the regular Cayenne — but although the performance was superb, I was left craving a more powerful V8 engine.
The Porsche Cayenne is, without question, the finest SUV humanity has ever produced.
It's fast. It handles ... well, like a Porsche. It's roomy. It has plenty of space to stow gear.
So it has been since the early 2000s, when it made its shocking debut, and so it remains. But there's one thing. Brilliant though it may be, the Cayenne isn't really all that attractive.
Porsche has addressed that now with the Cayenne Coupé, a Cayenne with a fastback roofline and sportier stance than the regular SUV. SUV Coupés are all the rage. BMW does 'em. So does Mercedes. In think they're weird, but folk love 'em.
And in the Cayenne's case, the Coupé treatment deals with the great SUV's one glaring flaw.
Does it succeed? Read on to find out:
Read the original article on Business InsiderGreetings, 2020 Porsche Cayenne Coupé, in an $800 White Metallic paint job. The base price for my test car was $75,300, but options took the sticker to $86,090.
The Cayenne Coupé is set to challenge the BM X6 ...
... And the Mercedes GLE Coupé for the title of ... greatest four-door fastback SUV in all the land?
Let's just deal with this whole coupé thing, shall we?
A coupé is supposed to be a two-door with a roof. Such as the Porsche 911.
The Porsche Cayenne that isn't a coupé has a boxier silhouette.
The Cayenne Coupé under consideration here has a sloping roofline, much of which is glass, curving through ...
... An integrated spoiler ...
... And descending rakishly through a hatchback ...
... And terminating with a small, decklid spoiler. The idea is to take a luxury SUV and turn it into a luxury SUV with more flash and style and sportiness.
I'll concede that the Porsche Cayenne Coupé looks sharper than the regular Cayenne, solving the Cayenne's worst feature: it's massive rear end.
I mean, the Cayenne is glorious, but the back end is regrettable.
Thee front end, of course, defaults to the traditional bug-eyed design lingo that has defined Porsche since the 1950s. Take it or leave it, there's no mistaking who made this machine.
The famous Porsche badge occupies a modest amount of real estate. I have to say that the sea-of-white aspect of my tester was a modest turnoff. I've don't much care for blanched Porsches.
The cool, quad-point running lights combine with a superb, swept-back headlight assembly to make seeing even darkest road ahead an effortless experience.
The blacked-out blades of the front maw add menace to the fascia. The more black on this big ol' white sorta turtle-ish looking' ride, the better.
I dunno — the Cayenne has never been a looker, but fastback treatment helps.
I will say that Porsche could up the ante somewhat on the nameplating. You might need binoculars to read "Cayenne" in chrome from a distance.
The dual pipes, finished in chrome, are a nice touch.
I genuinely admired Porsche tail light game! While the headlights are a given, the tail light can have a wonderful, slashing approach to give the back end some dynamic oomph.
They wrap beautifully around the rear haunches.
My tester came with a set of 21-inch "Spyder" wheels, a $2,700 extra.
Front and back, this base-level Cayenne had cast-iron brake rotors and black calipers.
Let's check out the cargo hatch!
It's big! There's 22 cubic feet, expandable to 54 with the rear seats dropped.
It swallowed some groceries with ease.
Contrast that with what I managed, frunk-wise, when I tested the 911. Now THAT'S why you get the Porsche SUV!
Time to pop the hood and see what propels this 4,700-pound Porsche.
The Cayenne Coupe has a 3.0-liter turbocharged V6, making 335 horsepower with 332 pound-feet of torque.
The power is sent to the all-wheel-drive system through an eight-speed automatic with a manual-shifting option.
Let's look inside!
Porsches aren't Mercedes. If you expect bling, you won't find it in here, amid the $3,700 "Slate Gray" leather and subdued appointments.
I'm not kidding. You get almost no flash. But the fit and finish is tremendous. Craftsmanship, meet minimalism.
The rear seats are notably roomy, even with the sloping roofline taken into account.
Plenty of legroom ...
... And space to stretch out. The back seats have been lowered slightly to deal with ...
... the glass, panoramic fastback roof, which allows much light to flood the cabin.
Porsches are supposed to be about driving, and the Cayenne has always distinguished itself on this score.
But the Cayenne Coupé is quite accommodating for driver and passengers.
The thick, topstitched, multi-function steering wheel is heated, as are the front seats. The tachometer is front and center in the instrument cluster, and the drive-mode selector is located on the lower right. You have Normal, Sport, Sport-Plus, and an Individual mode to choose from.
In Normal Mode, the Cayenne Coupé hustles up to seventh and eights gears, to enhance the MPGs. Auto-stop-start is also active in this mode, as well as Sport, which hold the shifts longer. Sport + give you the full monty, and Individual allows from customization. Usually, I favor Sport with Porsches, but with the Cayenne Coupé and the least-power motor, I made the move to Sport + and enjoyed punching the Sport Response button, which serves up 20 seconds burst of all the boost the turbo six can muster.
The undergirdings of the Cayenne are intricate. There's both torque vectoring a rear-wheel steering, as well as Porsche's traction management and dynamic chassis control features, which do allow you to push this SUV rather hard without having to worry about that which might concern you with lesser utes.
The top speed is 151 mph, and the 0-60 mph dash passes in just under six seconds.
Off-roading? Check. The Cayenne has several modes: Gravel, Mud, Sand and Rock.
The paddle shifters are low-key ...
... But I actually used them, a lot. That's more than I can say of paddles on most of the other sporty SUVs I test.
The center console is exquisite and simple, with gorgeously made knobs and buttons embedded in a glistening piano-black touchscreen surface.
The audio volume control alone is a study in attention to detail.
There's also a console above the driver that shows similar design forethought.
Nods to Porsche tradition include the starter switch, left-hand mounted ...
... and the dash-center stopwatch.
Not for nothing, but the key fob is Porsche-shaped.
The infotainment system runs on a 12.3-inch center touchscreen, with an adjunct screen on the right side of the instrument cluster.
The system is fantastic, handling GPS navigation, Bluetooth-pairing, and USB connectivity, serving up the interface in crisp high-def.
You do need to put yourself in an engineer's frame of mind to negotiate some aspects of it. But it's more intuitive and easier to use than previous Porsche systems.
The Home view is a simple, tiled arrangement.
And the screen is very responsive, never lagging.
That's important if you want to check the weather ...
... tweak the climate controls ...
... Or shuffle through off-roading ...
... Or foul-weather modes.
So what's the verdict?
I've been unashamedly awestruck by the Cayenne ever since it was first unveiled in the early 2000s. Two decades later, it continues to impress, impress, and impress some more. Porsche defied the naysayers with its stupendous and prescient take on what back in those days was an SUV form that had been defined by relatively crude, truck-like vehicles, such as the Ford Explorer (crude but effective, of course). The Cayenne added luxury, sizzle, and above all Porsche values to the mix. And Stuttgart reaped the rewards.
So here we are. Enter the Cayenne Coupé, Porsche's effort to capture its fair share of the growing fastback SUV market. "Fastback SUV" — I still struggle to accept that these vehicles exist. But they do, and they're popular, giving premium nameplates the chance to offer versatile haulers with a smidgen more style than their boxier counterparts.
The Cayenne always does it for me, and the Coupé was no exception. But ... well, the truth is that the last Cayenne I drove was V8-powered, and the last two Porsches I enjoyed were the stupendous 911 Carrera 4s and 911 Turbo S. So the Cayenne Coupé with a V6 under the hood was going to present some adjustments to my mindset.
The whole point of the Cayenne Coupé is to deliver a sportier Cayenne. And while the Coupé is plentifully sportif, I was left craving the beefier engine option. This reaction shook me up. I normally prefer Porsche's sixes to its eights, especially in the Panamera sedan. It wasn't as if the Coupé didn't serve the good stuff, either: I punched it on the highway and dove into backwoods curves, and this Cayenne performed with predictable aplomb. It's easily the best SUV Coupé I've ever piloted. But is it Porsche excellent?
I mean, yeah. But while I prefer less horsepower and more agility in sports cars, I guess I want my circa 2020 SUVs to bring some brawn to the party. That would logically leave me wanting for some seat time in the 541-horsepower Turbo version. In this respect, I suddenly realized that I'm now officially of two minds when it comes to Porsches: I like the lowest-powered 911, the base Carrera; I favor the wimpier V6 Panameras over the stonking V8s; I think the burlier Macans are overdone; and yet when it's Cayenne time, gimme power, power, and more power.
So the Cayenne Coupé, while objectively great, isn't quite magnificent, in my book. Obviously, there's a version that probably is — I just haven't yet savored it.
Think about that verdict for a second: objectively great but not quite magnificent. Now consider the standard that the Cayenne Coupé has to live up to: it must be a more stylin' iteration of the greatest SUV ever built by human hands on planet Earth. Tall order. And — it must be said — mission more or less accomplished. I twist myself into knots for the same reasons I might be vexed when contrasting Picasso's blue period with late cubism: we're not exactly in the realm of the mundane anymore.
And remember that although the Cayenne Coupé is theoretically competing with BMW and Mercedes coupé offerings, that's really just a conceit. The Cayenne Coupé has one critical competitor and that's the Cayenne itself.
It is, then, worthy. And while it ain't cheap, it makes good on expectations. It's also massively less expensive than the V8-equipped Turbo trim, which at $130,000 is properly rich. What the Cayenne Coupé achieved is a brilliant point of entry. But for me, it's only the beginning.
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