Porsche Cayenne Hybrid review

Your say

Porsche Cayenne 3.0 V6 S Hybrid Road Test

Test date 14 June 2010 Price as tested £60,506

For Classy interior, impressive pace, size-disguising looks, high-speed ride

Against Clumsy brakes, awkward power delivery, sterile steering, inflated price

The first line of the Autocar road test of the Cayenne Turbo, seven years ago, read: “Perhaps it should be called the Porsche Controversy.” How times change. Since the Cayenne’s 2003 introduction, Porsche’s entry into the then-burgeoning SUV market has been accepted to the extent that it is now consistently Porsche’s best-selling model.

Even those who have not come to love the Cayenne would find it hard not to be impressed by its dynamic ability – and perhaps heartened by the knowledge that its contribution to Porsche’s coffers has allowed for impressive improvements to the rest of the Porsche range. The Cayenne is not controversial now.

Nor, then, is the advent of a replacement for it which has, as before, been developed alongside the Volkswagen Touareg, whose architecture it will again share.

There are five engine flavours for the Cayenne and, unusually, all arrive at the same time. They range from a petrol V6 through to a turbocharged V8 and again include a diesel. Most intriguing, though, and hence tested on these pages, is Porsche’s first hybrid.