• Consider a Porsche that you might need as much as you want it: The Cayenne has five doors, areal (and real comfortable) back seat, cargo capacity, towing capability and a rugged four-wheel-drive system;
• Still, the Cayenne is very much a Porsche, and in the history of Germany's famed Nurburgring racing circuit, only seven production vehicles have lapped the track in less time than the Cayenne Turbo.
• The "base" Cayenne S has a 4.5-liter V8 engine that provides 340 horsepower. The Turbo boosts that figure to 450.

Think of the Cayenne as the practical Porsche.

"Does anyone actually need a Porsche?" asks Wolfgang Durheimer, Porsche board member and head of Porsche vehicle research and development. "Let's be brutally frank," he continues, "no one really need our sports cars. Their practical value is not very high."

But, Durheimer quickly adds, in little more than half a century, Porsche has sold more than one million sports cars. "Obviously, people want a Porsche whether they need it or not," he says.

But now there is a Porsche that you might need as much as you want it: The Cayenne sport utility. A Porsche with five doors and a real (and real comfortable) back seat and cargo capacity and towing capability and a rugged four-wheel-drive system that's ready for seemingly any off-road challenge. But the Cayenne is still a Porsche, and in the history of Germany's famed Nurburgring grand prix racing circuit, only seven production vehicles have lapped the track in less time than the Porsche Cayenne Turbo.

Several of those vehicles that have faster times at the Nurburgring are Porsche sports cars, though the Cayenne Turbo's best laps match those by the highly regarded Porsche Boxster S. That's right, the SUV is as fast as the high-performance roadster.

"It's a highly practical vehicle," Durheimer says of the Cayenne, "and also a genuine Porsche."

Some Porsche purists argue that a Porsche SUV is sacrilege. But they said the same thing when the company introduced the 911 to replace the aging 356, when the front-engined 944 and 928 were introduced, when the 911's air-cooled engines got coolant-filled radiators and when the Boxster was added to the lineup.

They'll probably continue to say such things about the Cayenne, until they've driven one.

"The SUV is here to stay," says Rich Ford, executive vice president of Porsche Cars North America. "With all of its versatility, it's become an integral part of the American lifestyle." But, Ford adds, there are people who want more than a four-wheel-drive truck with a luxurious interior, so "we've added performance and power."

Even the "base" Cayenne, the Cayenne S, has a 4.5-liter V8 engine that provides 340 horsepower and 310 pound-feet of torque to propel a 4949-pound vehicle from a standard start to 62 miles per hour in 7.2 seconds on its way to a top speed of 150 mph. Of course, times slow if you're using the Cayenne's 7,716-pound towing capacity or working your way up some rocky trail.

The Cayenne Turbo uses twin turbochargers to boost output to 450 horsepower and to 457 pound-feet of torque, dropping the 0-62 figure to 5.6 seconds and increasing the top speed to an autobahnesque 165 mph.

Speed is one thing, but the Cayennes also turn and stop like true Porsches, thanks to such things as active traction and stability management technologies, ride-height adjustable air suspension, steering that provides sports car-like feedback and 13.78-inch front and 13.00-inch rear disc brakes.

We'd experienced the Cayenne's amazing dynamic capabilities, and in some extreme situations, as a passenger while chronicling the vehicle's development on three trips with the Porsche engineering test team. (Versions of those stories edited for space can be found in the November 2002 issue of Porsche Panorama, the January 2003 issue of Road & Track or the January/February 2003 issue of Motor Trend's Truck Trend magazines, and we've posted the full text on iZoom.com at the following links:

A matter of degrees: Low temperatures, high latitudes

We were Down (under), but not quite Out(back)

For the Cayenne, the American West is the final frontier

After riding for some 5,000 miles through Canada's frozen Yukon, Australia's blistering Outback and over the rocky trails of the Rocky Mountains of the American West, we finally got to drive the Cayenne at its international media launch in Jerez, Spain.

"A Porsche has always been much more than the sum of its technical data," Durheimer said before handing over the keys. To deliver its full "emotional thrill," he said, "a Porsche must be driven."

We experienced our first emotions at the wheel as we drove an off-road course that had been set up on the hills surrounding the Circuito Permanente de Velocidad, for many years the site of the Spanish Grand Prix race. The course included hills, a water crossing, mud and very deep holes designed to showcase wheel articulation and traction, and all of it made more extreme than expected after several days of unexpected thunderstorms and high winds.

The course was fit for a Range Rover, and especially with the weather conditions, we thought it was probably even more severe than the off-road trek we'd recently driven in the Hummer H2 at the General Motors proving grounds in Michigan. But the Cayenne - and we were in the S version with the standard (non-air) suspension, though with 18-inch Pirelli all-terrain tires - had no real difficulty taking us over and through the obstacles.

We did need a couple of tries and a running start to make it up a hill covered in loose stones made even slicker by the rain that was falling, but the V8s power and the vehicle's "intelligent" four-wheel-drive system got us up, over and then down a steep incline, and without needing to throw any switches to lock differentials or to activate hill descent controls. Porsche Traction Management technology let us just sit back and steer, tipping into the gas just enough to encourage the Cayenne as it made its way through muddy holes so deep that one corner of the car would disappear and its diagonal opposite would become airborne, yet the Cayenne kept moving forward.

Negotiating off-road also is easier because of a suspension setup that allows the wheels not only substantial vertical articulation (and even more with the air suspension that's standard on the Turbo and optional on the S), but also a wide degree of turn angle with a turning circle of only 39 feet.

Testing for the weekend's Spanish national motorcycle racing championships kept us off the Circuito de Jerez racetrack, but we still got to explore some of the Cayenne's capabilities on pavement. While the off-road segment was more challenging than anything any Cayenne buyer is likely to attempt in the vehicle, the on-road driving through the Spanish hill country and on Jerez' city streets was probably pretty typical of the sort of daily driving Cayenne owners will do.

We drove both the Turbo and Cayenne S on-road, and this S was equipped with the air suspension also. All Cayennes are equipped with Porsche Stability Management that automatically assists the driver in the event of extreme oversteer or understeer, and with Porsche Traction Management for off-road control. But the air suspension adds ride-height adjustment and active suspension management that provides comfort, normal and sports settings for the air shocks and uses feedback from five accelerometers to adjust the suspension to provide optimize performance.

With shifter buttons on the steering wheel for the new, six-speed Tiptronic S transmission, the Cayennes belied their weight as we used high-performance Pirelli tires to carve around the corners.

The Cayenne carves those corners much like a 911 or Boxster, because the Cayenne is set up not with the typical front-biased or even 50/50 torque split of many all-wheel-drive SUVs, but with 63 percent of the engine's torque flowing to the rear wheels under normal conditions, to provide the sensation over oversteer that Porsche buyers like so much in their vehicles.

The Cayenne Turbo has about the same power to weight ratio as the Boxster S, but even the Cayenne S felt lighter and more nimble than any other SUV we'd driven to that point.

The cabin was quiet even at considerably high speeds. The figures displayed on the speedometer indicated a rate of motion much higher than the sort of sensations we were experiencing in the Cayenne's calm, quiet and leather-covered interior.

The new Porsche Communication Management system that is included as standard equipment on the Cayenne Turbo has a navigation system that includes two features we especially like: intuitive controls and quick recalculation of the way back should you decide to deviate from the route you've been following to your destination; some systems simply scream for you to make an immediate U turn and return to the original route. PCM also includes an on-board trip computer and a 350-watt Bose Cabin Surround Sound System with a CD player and 14 speakers.

The Cayenne's back seat is roomy and comfortable, and supportive enough for those times when the driver wants to explore the sport section of this sport utility.

The rear cargo area is wide and deep, and can be accessed either through the fully opened hatch or by simply opening just the rear window.

While the Cayenne may be the first Porsche that people actually need, it's also the vehicle that Porsche needs in its bid to retain its independence and identity.

Rich Ford of Porsche Cars North America notes that most Porsche owners also own an SUV and a luxury sedan. The Cayenne provides them with a vehicle that can serve either of those functions without having to turn to another brand.

With the 2003 Cayenne S starting at $55,900 and the Turbo at $88,900, Ford expects sales of the Cayenne not only to generate revenue, but to double Porsche's sales volume in North America, "assuring our independence as the world's smallest major car maker."

Ford also said that while sports car sales reflect the upturns and downturns in the economy, SUVs have a much wider appeal, in part because they've become the daily driver for many people.

Or as one Porsche engineer put it, think of the Cayenne is a Porsche that the entire family can enjoy together.