Porsche is the most profitable brand in the Volkswagen Group, but in the 1990s it was hit and miss. With all the costs they cut in the production of the Porsche Boxster, they were able to create the Porsche Cayenne: the SUV that became his lifeline turned twenty in 2022. A couple decades we’ve known three generations: which is the best of them? This ‘drag race’ has the answer.
Pitting its generations against each other is a very graphic way of checking how a model has progressed over time: that’s what it has done. Carwow UK. The first contender is Porsche Cayenne Turbo (2,355 kilos), first generation, which was equipped with a 4.5-liter twin-turbo V8: it generated 444 hp and 620 Nm of maximum torque. It wasn’t its most powerful version, though: that honor belonged to the 2008 Porsche Cayenne Turbo S, which topped out at 543bhp.
A decade later the second generation of the Porsche Cayenne arrived and we learned that ten years are enough for many changes in Stuttgart. The second rival is a Porsche Cayenne Turbo S with a 4.8-litre twin-turbo V8 making 562bhp and having a maximum torque of 800Nm. It was undoubtedly more powerful than its predecessor and, above all, it was significantly lighter: it weighed 100 kilos less.
On the way to the third generation, the electric age arrived and the Porsche flagship could not ignore it. The third model in question is a Porsche Turbo S e-Hybrid: the pre-facelift model. We are talking about an SUV capable of delivering 670 hp and 900 Nm thanks to the combination of a 4.0-liter V8 biturbo and an electric motor. It must be taken into account, yes, that the presence of these batteries triggers the weight to 2,490 kilos.
Past and present of the Porsche Cayenne
After the presentations, it is time to find out which generation of the Porsche Cayenne is the best. Or, perhaps, the fastest. More power and less weight are the two decisive factors: the Porsche Turbo S e-Hybrid covers the quarter mile (402 meters) in 11.6 seconds, while the Porsche Cayenne Turbo S does it in twelve. The Porsche Cayenne Turbo takes 13.7 seconds.
Despite its excess kilos, The electric character of the third generation marks the differences while that of the second beats, openly, that of the first. Not surprisingly, the pattern is repeated identically in the rest of the tests: the old model underperforms the newer ones. However, this does not mean that they are not good: they just lack the progress that the others do have because, yes, it is still a lot of fun.
