Hot peppers play a key role in international cuisine. If you’re a chili pepperaficionado, chances are they find their way into almost everything you eat.
The rush of endorphins most of us get from biting down on something intensely spicy keep us coming back for more, despite our better judgment. Cayenne pepper is a popular choice, probably because it ranks somewhere in the middle of the pepper heat continuum, providing a nice tingling on the tongue and on occasion the desire to seek out a glass of something cold. Perhaps that’s why Porsche selected the name for its line of SUV’s five years ago. There are varying degrees of heat in the Cayenne lineup, so to speak, the base V6 being mild and the Turbo model off the charts. In the case of this road test, we sampled something in the middle of the spicy model range, the Cayenne S. It’s not as tame as the V6, and of course not as manic as the mighty Turbo. However, opting for the Cayenne S gets you a silver appliqu? proclaiming so on the tailgate, along with a potent 4.5-liter V8 churning out 385 horsepower. That’s up 35 ponies over its platform-engineered cousins, the Volkswagen Touareg and the Audi Q7, and well into spicy territory.
Seeing as the Cayenne accounts for a large chunk of Porsche’sinternational sales, when it came time to refresh it for model 2008 the brand’s approach to changing its looks were cautious at best. That said, we think that the Cayenne looks better than it ever did before, defining itself as an individual product in the company’s lineup rather than trying to convince everyone that it’s a 911 on stilts. Front and rear fascias are smoothed and treated to sharp looking LED treatments. It’s enough of a change that previous generation Cayenne owners were visibly craning their necks to get a good look.
As we touched on during our road test with the V6 variant, the Cayenne is a vehicle that evokes strong emotions by all who behold it. There are those who love its clean, chunky appearance and marvel at its off road capability, while others sneer and cast distasteful looks. It all depends on personal taste and perspective. Some of those folks are Porsche purists who maintain that a company that is in the business of building sports cars has no right building an SUV. Sales figures notwithstanding, we think those folks should redirect their anger elsewhere, as the Cayenne has helped to propup Porsche and make it the most profitable automaker in existence on a per-unit basis, not to mention that such profit has allowed it to produce specialty cars like the Carrera GT.
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