Lava Lounge Takes Flight

What we like:

Beautiful styling. An adaptive performer. Excellent cockpit. Still practical.

What we dislike:

Large touchscreen compromises optimum placement of middle air-conditioning vents. Exhaust note a little too muted.

They could not help themselves could they? Porsche is the latest brand to jump onto the coupe-inspired SUV bandwagon. Brands like BMW and Mercedes-Benz had theirs for a while, with the X6 and GLE Coupe respectively. Audi went that direction too… kind-of… with their Q8, which is a very boxed-up Coupe-inspired SUV… or would that make it an SUV-inspired Coupe? Oh well… there are buyers, and if it fits, it sits!

So here it is! Porsche’s new Cayenne Coupe. The coupe variant of their third generation flagship SUV, now channels iconic 911 even more, with its sloped roof, and slightly wider rear haunches. Porsche had also fussed over the angling of the Cayenne Coupe’s A-pillar, to present a lower front profile.

If you were to squint again, there is a little bit of visual trickery with the roofline. Partially hidden by the roof spoiler, the top of the roof is a little straighter that the sloping C pillar would suggest, which translates to practical headroom despite the receding roofline.

Our Lava Orange test car is equipped with the Lightweight Sport Package, an almost $55k option, which includes a carbon fiber roof, great for shaving off some weight and lowering the car’s overall centre of gravity, and comes complete with a set of matt-finished 22” GT Design wheels.

Like its SUV sibling, the Coupe’s interior is one of the best in the industry. A 12.3” full-HD touchscreen takes centrestage, and fronts their intuitive Porsche Communication Management (PCM), delivering all the information you need at your fingertips. In true Porsche tradition, the instrument panel features a central analogue rev-counter, and is flanked by two 7” full-HD displays, which functions as the rest of the instrument cluster.

We like that the current gloss black centre console design also visually eliminates possibilities of button blanks (if you happen to have a lower list of optional extras installed), and switches for the climate-control unit, and buttons for switching functions on the display are spot-on with quality. While both the touchscreen and centre console are magnets for fingerprints, they can be easily solved with a visit to a third-party protective film vendor.

To accommodate passengers at the rear, where the lowered roofline poses an issue, rear seats have been lowered by 30mm, which is hardly a compromise in terms of space, since legroom at the rear is already generous. The rear seats however do lose their forward-sliding functionality. Our test car came with the standard two-seat bench layout at the rear, where the middle is fitted with an open tray which seems rather pointless... there is a no-cost option to swap that out for a two-plus-one seater bench.

Coupe styling no-doubt, but while cargo carrying capacity is less than the SUV variant, 625 litres goes a long way, and goes even further with 1,540 litres, with the rear 40:20:40 seatbacks folded

Our base Cayenne Coupe test car is powered by smooth-spinning a 3.0 litre V6, delivering 340hp and 450Nm, the same unit which powers the Volkswagen Touareg and Audi Q8; and takes the coupe, equipped with the lightweight sports package to 100km/h in 5.9 seconds (that would be 0.1 seconds quicker, than the standard car, but the advantages of the lightweight package is really in its lower CG). The mid-tier Cayenne Coupe S, gets the higher-powered 2.9 litre twin-turbocharged V6, which is found in the high performance Audi RS 4, and adds 100hp to the equation; while the cream of the crop V8 in the Cayenne Coupe Turbo presents a juicy 550hp to chew on, and an earth-turning 770Nm.

Gear changes from the 8-speed transmission are smooth, and ratios complement the engine’s delivery. Porsche also claims that you can attain top speed on 6th gear (something for sure we did not try), while seventh and eighth are intended for cruising. The coasting function has also been worked into the mix, to improve on fuel efficiency.

Handling is as expected, razor-sharp despite the Cayenne Coupe’s size. Porsche’s multi-link suspension does excellent work in keeping the car planted. The Cayenne Coupe also benefits from an 18mm wider rear end, and a lower rear-end centre-of-gravity. The only way to truly notice this is to pop it around a series of tight bends, right after driving the SUV version.

If you feel the need to push it past our speed restrictions here, an extendable rear spoiler, just below the rear windshield activates at speeds beyond 90km/h, and is intended to create more downforce on the rear wheels, for added grip and stability.

The two-stage adaptive Active Suspension Management (PASM), also means that when you’re done with play, you can dial it down, and the Cayenne Coupe can be as well-behaved as any good luxury Executive SUV. Releasing the car from Sport or Sport+, also relaxes the transmission’s interaction with the engine, and throttle response becomes a little less edgy… and what you get is luxuriously smooth ride quality, while cocooned within a well-insulated cabin.

The “coupe-ing” of an SUV might be to some like a storm in a teacup, but Porsche has done a fabulous job in this design exercise, and they seemed to have found that sweet spot between improving on design, while keeping in-line with their design DNA, without overly compromising on practicality and versatility.

#Porsche #Cayenne #Coupe #Autos #SUV #Testdrive #Cars #SG #Singapore

Credits: Words and Photos by Clifford Chow