The Land Where Spice is King - 2008 Porsche Cayenne
Porsche’s Second-Generation Cayenne puts the sport in sport utility vehicle with a virtuoso test track performance
The dictionary defines ‘Cayenne’ as “…a hot, biting condiment composed of the ground pods and seeds of the pepper Capsicum annuum longum.”
Some among the Porsche faithful define Cayenne as the beginning of the end for the sports car purity that built the Porsche name into a global legend.
It may be the beginning of the end of the company’s laser-focus on high-performance 2-seaters, especially with the 4-door Porsche Panamera ‘sedan’ due to hit the dealerships in 2009, but it’s hardly the end of exhilarating performance.
A recent trip to the Continental tire proving ground in Uvalde, Texas, where a small army of new Cayennes were put through their paces under extreme conditions – including wet- and dry-road handling, a demanding slalom course, sliding sideways on dirt roads and circling the 
high-speed oval at 150 mph with a professional driver and three journalist passengers -- provided abundant testimony to the fact that while the Cayenne is a different kind of Porsche, it most definitely has a license to thrill and the chops to wear the Porsche badge.
With a striking new face that features a dramatic new headlight design and with a wide and muscular body accented by broad wheel arches, the 2008 Porsche Cayenne’s newly sculpted shape provides vivid visual testimony to the vehicle’s enhanced technical features.
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