FLY THE COUPÉ

Baking practicality into a good-looking package

- Aditya Upadhyaula

Most of us like to think we know exactly what we want. Sometimes, however, what we think we want and what we actually want couldn’t be more different. An SUV coupé is the prime example of this. You think you want something that puts aesthetics above everything else, but end up with a car that’s so vain, it forgets its prime directive. The Porsche Cayenne Coupé, however, toes the line between need and want better than a tightrope walker.

At first glance, it looks like your typical SUV coupé with a roofline that curves sharply downwards past the B-pillar and comes to a rest at the electronically deployable spoiler on the decklid. It’s mostly just visual trickery, though, because the actual roofline of the car doesn’t curve quite as steeply. Clever use of a blacked-out roof and a spoiler at the top of the rear windscreen hide its actual roofline. Regardless, viewed from the side, there’s definitely a little resemblance to the 911’s classic silhouette. The rest of the package is all Cayenne, though, right from its headlights with fourpoint DRLs to the LED light bar at the back.