 Road Trip: NYC – 2013 Porsche Cayenne Diesel. Click image to enlarge |
The architecture and the food are the two things that keep drawing me back to visit New York, and we had a date at one of New York’s many steakhouses. More on that later.
Anyhow, your reasons may be different, but New York is a destination everyone should try to visit, for a walk and gawk through Times Square or up Fifth Ave, a carriage ride through Central Park, skating at Rockefeller Center, an afternoon at one of the great museums (the Met, MOMA, Guggenheim, Museum of Natural History and its amazing glass-curtain-wrapped planetarium, the Whitney, or even something smaller like the Frick Collection), catching a show on Broadway or something a little more upscale at the Lincoln Centre. And these are just a few of the most obvious tourist attractions, with an untold number of hidden gems and neighbourhoods to explore, both historical, modern, cultural and subversive, New York City truly has something for everyone.
  Road Trip: Victoria, BC – 2013 Porsche Cayenne Diesel. Click image to enlarge |
However, if you drive there, be prepared to pay ridiculous sums for parking, or to waste half your time hunting for somewhat affordable street parking. Me, I left the Cayenne safe in the bowels of an underground garage and used cabs whenever our destination was outside our walking range.
BM:
Victoria is just a short day-trip for me, as a Vancouver resident, but it sits at Mile Zero of the Trans-Canada Highway, and thus might just be one of the two ultimate Canadian destinations (the other being St. Johns in Newfoundland). Whether it’s a short hop or the long haul, you’d be hard-pressed to pick something better suited for the drive than the Porsche Cayenne.
Now let’s get one thing out of the way straight off. Yes, the Cayenne isn’t a fan favourite of the Porsche purist community. Worse, this one’s brown and scribbled on the flanks in that classic Porsche looping script is the word “diesel”. Shock! Outrage! I drove past a guy in a 964 cabriolet and he got so mad his toupee raised off his head, spun around 180 degrees and then burst into flames.
Thing is, while the idea of an SUV bearing the same badges as the thoroughbred racing machines of the past might be construed as a slap in the face to Porsche’s competition heritage, the fact is, Stuttgart builds a pretty convincing machine. Plus, now the Panamera’s out there, most 911 fans have found a new target to vent their rage on and sort of forgotten about how much we’re all supposed to hate the Cayenne.
This diesel-powered model has Porsche precedence as well, seeing as it has essentially the same engine as the Touareg TDI – it’s not unlike the similarly VW-powered 924. Talk about your unfair comparisons though, this 240-hp, 400 lb-ft of torque oil-burner is no poor-man’s Porsche-powerer (and, as in the 924, the motor is really more Audi than VW anyway).
On the contrary, the diesel is actually not the miser’s choice in the Cayenne range. Chasing social status? That’ll be the V6 model for you. Like the growl of a V8 and have a company gas card? Cayenne S or GTS will fit just fine. Slightly deranged or have an issue with obeying Newtonian physics? Turbo or Turbo S, you loon.
  Road Trip: Victoria, BC – 2013 Porsche Cayenne Diesel. Click image to enlarge |
For the smart money, there’s now this powerful-yet-efficient diesel. Or, for more money and a bit more thrust, there’s the slightly nerdy Hybrid model – two of which pulled up behind our car in the ferry lineup, both identically white.
