When the Porsche Cayenne first appeared, many thought the automaker had lost its marbles, but it’s proven to be immensely successful—so much so that there are now Cayenne Coupes, Cayenne EVs, and, as of today, Cayenne Coupe EVs. But not all of Porsche‘s SUV concepts have seen the light of day, and the first-generation Cayenne Convertible that the Porsche Museum has shared on Instagram is proof that not all of them deserve to. Around the time the first Cayenne appeared, Porsche was struggling to survive, and it was clearly exploring all options. To save money, it presented two design concepts in one vehicle, but it had at least two other ideas for the Cayenne. This convertible, however, is the only one that was actually built.
Cayenne Convertible Concept Looks Weird From All Angles
The front clip of the Cayenne Convertible looks fairly normal, but aft of the A-pillar, it all gets a little weird. A canvas convertible top (which would have been electrically operated if the vehicle had made production) slopes downward aggressively because this is a two-door. In profile, it doesn’t look too bad, but the Cayenne drop-top is still anything but pretty, with awkward rear haunches and a Targa-style bar running behind the rear seats. The further back you go, the stranger it looks.
Porsche crafted two different rear ends because of disagreements among the team in 2002, with the left side featuring an integrated spoiler in the tapering rear end and the right side featuring a more upright fascia that would surely have improved cargo space slightly. Porsche says the one-off prototype measures just under 189 inches in length, but that’s the only technical specification provided because this is not a running model, and if it were, it would twist itself to pieces.
Porsche calls vehicles like this one Package Function Models (PFM), which means they’re created only to evaluate how everything would look and fit together. As such, the roof was cut off the Cayenne without adding additional stiffeners to the body, so the prototype has to be transported wherever it goes. But that’s okay because the PFM was only built to assess four criteria:
- Is the seating comfortable for all passengers with such an aggressive roofline and such short A-pillars?
- How practical is this concept with doors that are almost 7.9 inches longer?
- Is the soft-top elegant, of high quality, and able to be folded quickly?
- How should the rear end look?
Why Porsche Decided Against a Convertible Cayenne, and What Else It Considered
The Cayenne Convertible was already shared with the world in 2022, with Porsche explaining it never reached production because forecasts about its potential profitability were not positive. Doubts over whether this concept could be made attractive also lingered, as designer Michael Mauer explained. “An SUV as a convertible is a challenge both aesthetically and formally,” he said. “An SUV always has a large and heavy body. You combine this with a small top half and then cut off the roof — you get very strange shapes emerging from that.”
Other strange shapes Porsche was pondering at the time included a genuine SUV coupe that would have only had two doors, and the polar opposite, a long-wheelbase version stretched by 7.8 inches. We’re glad Porsche stuck with just a regular SUV, as these other ideas would have been expensive and could have caused the company to falter rather than thrive. With Porsche starting to struggle again this decade, perhaps it will conceptualize something out of left field again.
