I’ll come clean straight away. I have never liked the look of Porsche’s 4×4 - not one little bit. A VW Touareg with the bonnet of a Porsche 911 grafted on is how it appears to me. A million miles from Porsche’s ‘true’ cars of the 911, Boxster and Cayman it’s launch in 2002 was a cynical attempt to exploit the Porsche badge and would never sell, I told myself.

And yet what did I know? The runaway success of the Cayenne is one of the key reasons why Porsche is the most profitable car maker in the world and now owns a big chunk (31%) of VW. Regularly the top selling Porsche model in North America, the car seemed to hit the sweet spot of being a) An SUV b) A performance car c) A Porsche.

So when the chance came to have a drive in the Porsche Cayenne Turbo I thought I might as well give it a go. Who knows? I could become a convert.

The shiny black paintwork did it’s best to hide the ungainliness of the beast but any melting of the heart towards it’s looks was stopped by my local builder. ‘The top roof rails look like they’ve come from a hearse’ he observed. Smiling, I looked and unfortunately he had a point. I was only slightly lifted when the tiler said ‘I wouldn’t be seen dead in that’.

Before any more tradesmen united in condemnation I quickly got in behind the wheel and heard the reassuring thunk of the door, isolating me from the rest of the world. The interior was black and fairly spartan. The familiar Porsche buttons and switch gear were present. Whereas in the more sporty smaller models they can look cramped and fiddly they looked good in the bigger car. In comparison with other luxury cars the list of techno goodies was quite limited. Sat Nav, good Bose sound system and trip computer were all present but things found in cars half it’s price like auto lights, multi CD and blue tooth phone were missing. Perhaps they were options but pay this money and you would hope they were there from the start. Certainly a Range Rover would give you more.

That being said, the heated steering wheel was a nice gadget and the car was immaculately put together, as you expect from Porsche. You may not get a lot but what you get will work forever.

As you’d expect from a big SUV, the storage space of 540 litres with all seats up was adequate (though not that good if you compare it with a claimed Range Rover Sport value of 958 litres). But, hey, if you want a lot of space get yourself a van - it’s what’s up front that matters with this car.

The 4.8 litre, turbocharged 8 cylinder engine kicks out 500bhp which propels the car to 60 mph in 5 seconds, 100 mph in 11.4 seconds and onto 171 mph. To put that in perspective, that beats the two seater Boxster S on all three counts.

Driving off you get a sense of the power but also the feeling that you are still in a big 4×4. Select comfort suspension and the car wallows ever so slightly and you slip around in the seat. Put it into sports mode and the drive firms up making it come alive. It’s easy to hustle and has bags of urge. However, the brakes feel ever so slightly underpowered, taking longer than you would like to bring the 2.5 tonne car to a halt.

So, onto its 4 wheel drive capability. Well, it’s certainly got all the kit, with buttons that let you lock various bits of the drive train to get maximum traction. With maximum ride height selected and things locked that can be locked it crawled its way over a slight curb, waded through some puddles and went onto a grassy verge with ease. So, having tested it way beyond the majority of owners out there I can say you can bump up that curb without fear. I’d stay off big muddy stuff though as the standard tyres are totally unsuitable and you might also get your alloys mucky. Seriously, it has the technical underpinnings for competent off roading but barring the odd jaunt through the slush to your Swiss ski chalet let’s face it - it’s unlikely ever to be called into action.

Yet surely this must be the best combination for a car? Phenomenally fast, bags of space, off road capability, great build quality and a coveted badge. Obviously a lot of people think so but sorry, it just left me cold. I don’t need the 4×4 capability and once you’ve ditched that requirement there are plenty of better alternatives.

I had the car for three days and managed to cover just 43 miles at miserable 11.1 mpg. This wasn’t through any lack of opportunity, just a lack of motivation to pick up the keys and drive…enough said.