Shed once had a bet with Mrs Shed that he could do a naked handstand for thirty seconds. She took the bet immediately and won it in three seconds flat courtesy of a single eye-wateringly well-placed hit with her sports frying pan. No amount of red-faced protestations from Shed altered the outcome, Mrs Shed standing absolutely firm on his failure to exclude testicular thramping from the terms and conditions.
Shed hasn’t been much of a gambling man since then but he might make an exception with this week’s sub-£2k tempter and SOTW debutant, an early example of Porsche’s Cayenne S, or as many a journo likes to call it, the car that saved Porsche.
Some of you might be surprised to see two-grand Cayennes oft upon the rialto but Shed has seen these 955s for under £1,500. Even at that of course they’re still losing a lot less money than Taycans.
Full production of the gen-one Cayenne started in late 2002 for the ’03 model year. The base cars were built in Slovakia but the interiors and overall quality inspection were done in Leipzig to give owners that important ‘now I don’t have to admit it wasn’t built in Germany’ deniability. The Cayenne was closely related to the VW Touareg to the extent that it could come with a VR6 engine, but you only went down that route if you didn’t mind being overtaken by Dacia Dusters.
The S and the twin-turbo, er, Turbo, were the first two Cayenne models to come off the Leipzig line, and much more the ticket. They started off with 4.5-litre V8s which went up to 4.8 litres in 2007. The 4.5 Turbo with 444hp/457lb ft and the 2006-on 514hp/531hp Turbo S were both seriously fast, knocking out 0-62mph times in 5.6 seconds and 5.2 seconds respectively, but even the basic naturally aspirated 4.5 like the one we have here did decent 7.2-second 0-62 times with 333hp and 310b ft despite having more or less the same 2.3 tonnes to push around as the forced aspiration Cayennes. The S was more economical than the Turbos too, although not by much; 19mpg official combined versus 18mpg for the Turbo S. That’s where the weight hurt it. You’d very much need to leave your lead boots at home to get these numbers in either car.
Other road users approaching a Cayenne from the rear sometimes wished they’d left their specs at home because in period the gen-one was not considered beautiful. It actually looks better now from many angles, but that list of angles does not include the back one which remains gopping. It’s not helped in this case by the gluing of a Porsche badge onto a panel that really wasn’t designed to take it. With luck, some passing scrote will lever that off for the next owner.
What can go wrong? Well, how long have you got? When they were new the ride was criticised for its firmness, although that did endow it with sprightly handling for such a big lump. Twenty years on there’s still a lot to like but the S is regarded as the least reliable model. The wrong kind of smoke from the exhaust and/or light tapping noises could often mean cylinder bore wear on an S, usually as a result of owners down the line using too-cheap petrol. That would write it off.
The Tiptronic auto box was reliable enough if the oil and filters were changed at the right times. As with the petrol thing, the farther down the ownership line you got, the less likely folk were to keep to the schedules. The all-wheel-drive system with a low-range mode was pretty trustworthy but the central propshaft bearing could start to grumble. Coolant pipes were made of plastic, and we all know what happens to old plastic.
Bodywork drain holes had to be kept clear, not just to fend off rust but also to reduce the chance of watery doom for the electronics. This car doesn’t have a sunroof so that’s one less water intrusion point to worry about. Nor, Shed thinks from squinting at the centre console rolodex switchgear, does it have air suspension. He can’t be sure on that as Mrs Shed sat on his specs yesterday and he hasn’t seen them since. Hopefully it doesn’t have air because that’s something you don’t want on sheds, Cayennes very much included.
You’ll still find plenty of solid 955s around though, vindicating the claim that on build quality at least these early cars were only beaten by Lexus as Porsche strove to make a hard statement in what was for them a totally alien market. The MOT on this one runs to the end of September and is clear. Obviously, the elephant in the room is going to be running costs. Tax isn’t too bad at £415pa but it would be a hoot to book this £2k Cayenne into an Official Porsche Centre for a service.
You’d hope (almost certainly in vain) that they would take it in with the same sort of light-hearted attitude as this week’s seller who has very nicely captured the spirit of shedliness, openly admitting to the Riverboat Queen casino nature of the ownership proposition while also pointing out the pluses, viz the pleasure of sitting behind a Porsche V8, seeing no warning lights on the dash, luxuriating in a nice cabin and riding on wheels that might well be worth a few bob on their own. The ad is well written in King’s English rather than the grammar-free gobbledygook normally favoured by UK used car dealers and footballers. In another massive departure from normal shed selling the vendor hasn’t siphoned the last quarter of a tank of petrol out of it. Utter madness. His loss is your gain, for the first half an hour or so anyway.
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