For 2008, the Porsche you can take to the Home Depot gets a few styling changes, mostly to the front and rear, that Porsche claims help reduce wind drag. Above, a view of the instrument panel and front passenger area.

porsche

The idea of a Porsche sport-utility vehicle might have seemed about as incongruous as a Rolls Royce pickup truck five years ago. Some could have wondered, how can a company renowned for dashing little sports cars put its name on an SUV?

But the Porsche Cayenne is still around and making friends.

One reason: The Cayenne is no Suburban. It’s very much what the Porsche of SUVs should be: dashing in a boxy sort of way, like archrivals BMW X5 and Mercedes-Benz M-Class.

Porsche delivered on its promise of sizzling performance and great handling — if not on good looks — when it introduced the first Cayennes, for the 2003 model year.

For ’08, the Porsche you can take to The Home Depot gets a few styling changes — mostly to the front and rear — that Porsche claims help reduce wind drag.

It also gets more power, thanks mostly to direct fuel injection and new variable-valve timing and lift.

The second-generation Cayenne, the ’08, went on sale last March, and the changes seemed to have clicked with buyers, as they did with me. Sales of this ripping-good SUV last year were up almost 19 percent from a year earlier, to about 12,000 units. We’re not talking big numbers here, obviously; Mercedes and BMW each sell about three times as many of their M-Class and X-5 models.

Still, an increase in sales of a luxury item in a market as weak as this one suggests a company doing something right.

The 2008 Cayenne is offered in three versions: a base model with a 290-horsepower, V6 engine; the “S” model I sampled with a 385-horsepower V8, and a 500-horsepower twin-turbocharged version of the S model. Base prices with freight are $44,295, $58,795 and $94,595, respectively.

Even the most lead-footed among you will find the 385-horsepower V8 more than adequate. And it sounds good, with a low rumble turning into a scream as the power builds.

A hybrid model is promised by the end of the decade.

The V6 and V8 engines in the predecessor model delivered 247 horsepower, 340 horsepower and 450 horsepower, respectively.

In “direct” fuel injection, as opposed to the system in most vehicles, gas is injected straight into the combustion chamber rather than into a stream of air before it gets to that chamber (says the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology).

All three available engines need premium fuel, once again. As estimated by the Environmental Protection Agency, fuel economy is only 20 miles per gallon in highway driving for the six-cylinder version.

The “cheapest” ’08 Cayenne comes standard with a stick shift, but an automatic is available. In the other two models, automatics are standard.

The automatics are, of course, “Tiptronics” that can be shifted manually but clutchlessly via the gear selector on the center console or buttons on the steering wheel. In either mode, the action is crisp.

The Cayenne falls in size between the 2.2-inch longer X5 and 0.4-inch shorter M-Class. Yet, the specifications published by all three manufacturers show the Cayenne capable of carrying 11 or 12 cubic feet less cargo than its rivals. That’s probably because the Cayenne is slightly narrower than the BMW, slightly less tall than the Benz and has the shortest wheelbase of the three.

If exclusivity is an upside of buying the Cayenne, a downside is there’s little objective information available about its safety or reliability. Neither the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration nor the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety offers crash-test evaluations for the ’06 or ’08 models.

J.D. Power does offer an overall rating for Porsches, and it’s mixed. In dependability over three years, according to one of its surveys, Porsches score near the bottom. In buyer complaints in the first three months of ownership, however, Porsche was ranked highest.

One might conclude from those results that owners love their Porsches when they’re new but that the cars are troublesome.

Porsche doesn’t mention any changes inside for ’08, but the interior could have used a few improvements. Stereo buttons are small — though there are some redundant controls on the steering wheel. The ignition keyhole’s location to the left of the steering wheel is unconventional and annoying.

On the upside, the interior is tastefully trimmed, though some of my passengers thought it rather plain for an $80,000-plus vehicle.

The Cayenne’s ride is firm but never jarring. Cornering is amazingly flat, especially for an SUV. Some of you used to driving a sports car might wish for more feedback from the steering.

While none of the Cayennes can be called cheap, their prices can ratchet up quickly with the many available and expensive options. My tester’s $57,900 base price was jacked up to $80,735 with sport wheels ($4,295); bi-zenon headlamps with washers ($1,560); a Porsche Communications Management dashboard controller ($3,070); air suspension with Porsche Active Suspension Management ($2,990); moon roof ($1,190); a Bose sound system ($1,665); several less expensive items, and new Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control ($3,510), which includes “active” anti-roll bars that almost completely offset body roll in turns by exerting opposite force via electric motors.

Also available (standard in the turbo model) are swiveling headlamps that help light the way around corners.

Programming has been added to the standard stability control system to help stabilize a swaying trailer.

Yep, the Cayenne is now more than ever an engineering tour de force, at a price to match.2008 Porsche Cayenne S

Engine: 4.8-liter V8, 385 horsepower

Torque: 369 pound-feet at 3,500 rpm

Fuel: Premium

Transmission: Six-speed automatic/manual Tiptronic, all-wheel drive

Safety: Dual front, seat-mounted side and curtain-type air bags; four-wheel disc brakes with antilock, stability control and brake assist; fog lamps

Place of assembly: Leipzig, Germany

Weight: 4,950 pounds

Cargo room: rear seatbacks up/down, cubic feet: 19.1/ 62.5

EPA fuel economy estimates: 13 mpg city, 19 highway

Price as driven: $80,735 including destination charge