What started as a way to save a troubled brand has become its most legendary success.
In 1989, Ferry Porsche predicted that an off-road Porsche would succeed, and that prediction would quickly become something that the Porsche would rely on when the brand saw its worst financial problems in the mid-90s. The Porsche Boxstar, a mid-engine sports car that eventually gave way to the Cayman and now the full 718 range, alleviated some of this problem in 1996, but it quickly became clear that the Boxstar would not pull the Porsche out of the woods alone. . It was then that the idea of creating an SUV for the North American market came up, which was quite acceptable to SUVs at the time.
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Developed in conjunction with the Volkswagen Towerg, the Cayenne and Towerg will have separate chassis setups and engines on the same platform. It did confirm that although the platform would be shared with Volkswagen, the Porsche Cayenne had a unique character and although it was an SUV, it was a Porsche. 20 years ago in 2002, the Cayenne was brought to the streets, and the result was an explosive breakthrough and one of Porsche’s best-selling models to date, a luxurious, sporty, and dynamic SUV that distills Porsche’s driving character and puts it in a whole new shape.
From the Cayenne, even the Sportier Cayenne Turbo and Turbo S flourished with more power and efficiency, as well as Porsche’s first hybrid, the Cayenne SE e-hybrid in 2010, which used a complete hybrid system instead of a power-splitting hybrid with pure electric driving range and Increased efficiency but performance. Today, the Cayenne Turbo S E-Hybrid has improved the foundation into an incredibly powerful luxury performance SUV, capable of getting from 0-60 in just 3.8 seconds. Cain also served as the base for the Porsche assembly, and also the sporty Cain GTS. Cayenne became an immediate success, providing 35,000 examples each year in the first 8 years, more than the expected 25,000, and in 2020, the millionth cayenne moved off the assembly line, with more than 80,000 cayenne sold in 2021. 20 years later, the Cayenne is still one of the most important Porsche models; Not only has this saved the brand, it has changed for the better.
Source: Porsche