Porsche doesn’t just make sports cars, they also make a lone sport utility vehicle. A strange choice perhaps, from a manufacturer famed for its super light weight sports marvels, but there’s a significant crossover in technology evident when you look under the hood of the 2009 Porsche Cayenne.

The Cayenne shares it’s basic build with the Volkswagen Touareg, which isn’t a particularly bad thing ñbetter yet, it’s got a Porsche built power train. Base Cayennes trims come with a 290-hp 3.6-liter V6 engine. Which is significantly bumped up to 385, 405, 500, and 550 hp, respectively in the V8, S, GTS, Turbo, and Turbo S models.

All Cayennes come with 4 wheel drive, which a range of sophisticated traction control, suspension levelling and automatic breaking systems to make the Cayenne almost omnisciently friendly to drive on any terrain you can throw at it.

As it’s a Porsche and includes a Porsche built engine, the designers couldn’t resist including a sport button, a single press will hunker the vehicle down into its wheel arches and tunes the engine and transmission to turn the Cayenne into a formidable road vehicle.

All this power, performance and luxury doesn’t come cheap, but if you are looking for an all terrain sport utility vehicle the Cayenne is one of the finest choice s available.