Porsche Cayenne Coupe - Fast Orange

This is the entry-level Cayenne coupe which means that it has the all aluminium 3L V6 turbocharged engine with Variocam. It produces 335hp and 450Nm of torque, very nice.
The brochure states a top speed of 150 mph and 0-62 takes 6 seconds, so it’s certainly not slow.
Cayenne coupe starts at around £62,000 and this particular car has a few choice extras so comes out at just over £80,000.
A couple of the more striking optional extras fitted to this car are the Lava orange paintwork which is definitely an acquired taste, although I find more people like it than dislike it. I really like it.
Our Cayenne Coupe also has the Porsche turbo design 22-inch alloy wheels. You've got 22's on your Cayenne. The tyres on these big wheels are 285/35-25 on the front and 315/30-22 on the rear.
The gearbox on the Cayenne is not the typical PDK gearbox you find on most Porsches, it’s a Tiptronic-S transmission. The reason for this is simply that the Tiptronic gearbox is similar to a traditional automatic gearbox and crucially, utilises a torque converter instead of a clutch. This makes it a great vehicle for towing.
Porsche have fitted the Cayenne with all aluminium, multilink suspension front and rear which is very impressive. This is enhanced by Porsche’ Adaptive AWD.
Cayenne brakes are fantastic. At the front, huge 4 piston aluminium monobloc callipers grab on to 350mm, while at the rear 2 piston aluminium monobloc callipers grab 300mm discs.
Porsche are renowned for excellent engineering. This isn’t the first Porsche press car I’ve had and the quality of the engineering has been exceptional. One of the many examples of this is in the body design. Porsche uses a galvanized steel and aluminium hybrid construction for the body. This means that the bonnet, the tailgate, the doors, the front wings, side panels and the roof section are all aluminium. The rest of the body being galvanised steel, so you won't have any issues with corrosion.
This particular car has a few choice options fitted as I mentioned: One of which is the Lava Orange paint which I’m a big fan of and I think it really suits the car. We also have full black leather. We have adaptive suspension which we will come to in a minute. We have the sports exhaust and they have also optioned rear-axle steering axle on this car. That takes a bit of getting used to but is very interesting, we’ll talk about that in a moment. We have the head-up display (HUD) which is superb, 22” Porsche design wheels and Alcantara roof trim.
Let's run through some of these features.
Black leather upholstery is superb. It’s absolutely flawless and is on the dashboard, the door cards the seats and the centre console. The leather is very high quality and very elegant as you would expect from Porsche.
Head-up display (HUD). This is a very good HUD, probably the best I’ve used. It sits below eye level so doesn’t obscure your vision and displays basic but essential information. The most prominent Information displayed is your speed, and there is an abbreviated sat nav with symbols such as t-junction or roundabout with a direction arrow and a small bar showing distance to it.
Rear-axle steering is another optional extra on this car and it's really interesting.
For slow-speed manoeuvring, it's a massive help. This is quite a big car at around 2m wide x 5m long but with the rear-axle steering, it means you can manoeuvre in tight spaces with ease. At speed the rear-axle steering has a noticeable influence on the handling too, helping to sharpen turn in. When you turn in to a corner at speed the car feels very agile, quite unexpected for a big SUV.
What’s the Cayenne Coupe like to live with? Well, I’ve had the car for a week and it’s hard to explain how immediately comfortable I felt with the car.
Some cars take a while to get a feel for or to feel comfortable with. With the Cayenne Coupe, it felt like it was my car, it felt very familiar.
Like all Porsches, there are several driver modes which are adjustable from a wheel on the steering wheel.
In normal mode, the computers soften the power delivery, the gearbox is fully automatic, the suspension is in it’s softest setting and overall the Cayenne is a lovely, comfortable car to cruise in. Think of it as luxury SUV mode.
Turn the dial to sport or sport+ and the character of the car changes dramatically. For example, the suspension lowers itself and the gearbox becomes more dynamic, holding on to gears for longer and rev-matching when changing down. An example of the more dynamic character of the gearbox in sport or sport+ would be: at slow speed in normal mode, the gearbox will change up to ensure a relaxed and quiet ride. At 20mph it is common for the Cayenne to be in 3rd gear. This is very nice for comfort, but if you need a quick burst of acceleration, for example at a roundabout, the car needs to change down one or two gears first. This takes time.
In sport or sport+ at 20mph, you will still be in 1st gear and the Cayenne is always ready for that sudden burst of acceleration. Think of it as sports car mode.
This car was optioned with adaptive air suspension. This provides a comfortable ride in normal mode with good ground clearance. Considering the poor condition of our roads, I found the Cayenne to be a fantastic drive, hardly transmitting any of the bumps to the occupants.
In sport or sport+, the suspension lowers and firms up, and the steering sharpens up too. In addition to this, the exhaust has a more aggressive tone and is noticeably louder due to some valving in the exhaust. In either sport or sport+ mode, the car is an absolute blast to drive. You would never expect a car this big to be so agile and nimble and so much fun, but it is.
In terms of safety and technology, I won’t run through all of the features as there are so many. The car is very well equipped and has every modern safety assist you can imagine. From lane keep assist to adaptive cruise control, from off-road mode to HUD, collision avoidance and many, many more. These are explained in more detail in our YouTube video review of the car.
The assists, media, satnav and more are all available through the beautiful full-colour infotainment screen in the centre, or the full-colour LCD dash in front of the driver. High quality and high resolution.
Porsche seems to have created a car that manages to combine the best parts of a sports car and an SUV.
Practical, comfortable, fast, fun. It looks great, sounds really good, drives fantastically and has been an absolute pleasure to drive for the week. I get to drive lots of cars and this one was one of the biggest surprises for me. I expected it to be numb and not very involving to drive but I couldn’t have been more mistaken. I was genuinely sad to see it go.