Porsche Nearly Did a Cayenne Cabrio, However Thought Higher of It

As soon as upon a time, the Cayenne was derided because the automobile that was lastly going to kill Porsche. After all it ended up saving the corporate, and at present — alongside the Macan — yearly it data about double the gross sales of the 911. Porsche at present would look far totally different with out the Cayenne; there’s an opportunity it won’t seem like something in any respect.

However for all of the criticism Stuttgart obtained for allegedly tarnishing its model with an SUV within the early aughts, Porsche exercised a good bit of warning when introducing the Cayenne. We all know this as a result of Porsche strongly thought-about going a lot additional. Too far, some would say.

This yr occurs to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Cayenne, and so Porsche is digging up some notable nuggets from its archive — a kind of being a Cayenne convertible.

Sure, years earlier than the surprisingly rare Nissan Murano CrossCabriolet, Porsche thought-about doing up a soft-top model of the Cayenne. Now, this isn’t a brand new revelation; this curiosity has been chilling within the firm’s assuredly well-ventilated sanctuary for some time, and first surfaced in 2017 in a video it produced. However the event marks a cause to revisit it, and so we will.

The cabriolet idea accompanied different takes on the Cayenne that Porsche was contemplating across the time of the nameplate’s launch, together with a coupe variant (to not be confused with at present’s Cayenne “Coupe,” which has 4 doorways) and one lengthened to suit an additional row of seats. However the open-air proposal is the one one which was realized as a life-size mannequin. It doesn’t drive, although — which turns into extra comprehensible the minute you see it from the again.

This pitch didn’t get particularly far alongside, as Porsche by no means even selected a rear-finish design. Neither appears nice, although on this creator’s opinion, the one on the passenger facet meshes with the traces of the SUV significantly better. The choice comes throughout like a determined try to masquerade the Cayenne as a 996 Cabriolet, and that’s a bridge too far for even the world’s most gifted designer.

Porsche had grand concepts for the way the delicate top-folding mechanism would work, and the way the Cayenne Cabrio would possibly protect some semblance of cargo utility regardless of all the additional scaffolding taking on area. From the corporate’s personal blog:

Had the automotive reached manufacturing, a single rear design would in fact have been settled on ultimately, and the technical points would undoubtedly have been resolved. A now-familiar soft-top mechanism was envisaged: the bags compartment lid of the Cayenne-PFM [Package Function Model] was connected on the entrance and rear, permitting it to be opened in each instructions. The roof would journey over the fastened roll-over bar and be ‘swallowed’ within the rear by the bags compartment lid, which opened in the other way, folding in a z-pattern. It has labored in a really comparable solution to this on the Porsche 911 Targa for the reason that 991-generation mannequin. The mechanism by no means bought previous the pc simulation stage for the Cayenne convertible, nevertheless, and was by no means totally constructed. Right now, the material high is stowed within the baggage compartment of the museum piece and have to be fitted manually if required.

This “Bundle Operate Mannequin” — Porsche-speak for “design examine” — began life as a manufacturing Cayenne earlier than its roof was eliminated. Nevertheless, the corporate’s engineers took no measures to structurally compensate for that omission, which roadworthy convertibles require. So the droptop SUV doesn’t transfer! It merely sits idle, a 5,500-pound, dual-assed query mark prompting Porsche Museum-goers to stare blankly and ask, “why?”