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Porsche’s V8 super-SUV from the company-saving first generation.

This is a 2009 Porsche Cayenne S — the V8 heart of the facelifted 957 range, finished in black. Beneath the clamshell hood sits a 4.8-litre naturally-aspirated V8 producing 385 horsepower and 369 lb-ft of torque, sent through a six-speed Tiptronic S automatic to a permanent all-wheel-drive system. That combination is good for 0–60 mph in around 6.4 seconds and a top speed near 157 mph — genuinely quick for a five-seat, two-and-a-half-ton SUV — while the standard self-levelling suspension, lockable centre differential and low-range transfer case give it real all-terrain ability to back up the on-road pace.

The Cayenne matters far beyond its own spec sheet. When Porsche launched it in 2002 it was a gamble that purists loathed: a tall, heavy four-wheel-drive Porsche with no sports-car silhouette. Yet it became the company’s best-seller almost overnight, and the profits it generated underwrote the 911, Boxster and Cayman programmes through the 2000s — by most accounts the car that secured Porsche’s independence and funded its modern golden age. The 957, built from 2007 to 2010, was the second-generation refinement of that original: cleaner styling, direct-injection engines and sharper dynamics. For KR Racing it is the do-everything Porsche — equally at home on a canyon road, a ski trip or a long interstate haul — proof that the marque’s engineering DNA survives intact even in its most practical form.