Porsche Cayenne Gets Update and New Options for 2005

While the improvements to the speedy Cayenne Turbo are impressive, they won't come cheaply. A new Porsche Cayenne Turbo with the

An electric roller-blind prevents the Cayenne's interior from becoming a greenhouse when the sun is out. (Photo: Porsche Cars North America)

Tequipment package has a list price of $153,550 CAD ($109,200 USD). For reasons unexplained Canadians are paying a substantial premium over U.S. buyers, being that the U.S. price of $109,200 directly converts to $137,158 CAD. That's a $16,932 premium just for being Canadian.

Like MINI's Works package, Tequipment can also be retrofitted to any previous model year Cayenne Turbo at a cost of $27,900 CAD ($19,900 USD) plus installation. Similar to buying the power upgrade from the factory, the kit costs Canadians $2,899 more, over and above exchange rates, with the direct conversion being only $25,001. Like the other options now available to the Cayenne, this power package will be available come December.

Up until this point, all expectations surrounding the Cayenne have come true, except for one, a stripped out, high-performance Club Sport model. While such a move sounds outrageous, no one would put it beyond Porsche to offer such a model in order to homologate a Paris-Dakar 'Raid' style racer to compete against BMW's X5. Given Porsche's years of involvement and superiority in the various motorsport classes it competes in, and the SUV's success in the growing market of performance luxury sport utility vehicles, it wouldn't be surprising if this was the next chapter to the Cayenne story.

Like the Tequipment upgrade, Porsche overcharges Canadians for all new Cayenne options. For instance, the Panorama Roof option

The German brand may want to revisit its exchange rate policy and in so doing stop gouging its Northern Porschephiles. (Photo: Porsche Cars North America)

that costs Canadians $5,490 CAD and Americans $3,900 USD should cost Canadians $4,900 based on current exchange rates. The same goes for the reverse camera priced at $2,350 CAD. Based on its U.S. price of $1,680 USD, it should cost Canadians $2,110 CAD. Altogether, if you purchased a 2005 Cayenne Turbo with the new panorama roof and rearview camera upgrades, the Canadian price would be $161,390. Based on the U.S. price for the said options of $114,780 and current exchange rates of 1 CAD equaling 0.795843 USD, the same as used for all other calculations, the price of the Canadian spec Cayenne SUV with the same options should be $144,168, a penalty of $17,222.

What did Porsche have to say for itself? Spokesman Gary Fong says, "Our Canadian prices are based on an average of historical USD/CAD exchange rates. We use this information to set a rate that is fair and that allows the company to create stable long-term prices and avoid price fluctuations. This rate was set some time ago to conservatively account for exchange rate fluctuations." No doubt, the German brand may want to revisit its exchange rate policy and in so doing stop gouging its Northern Porschephiles.