Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen huge interest in older generations of luxury SUVs. The Porsche Cayenne is at the center of everything, wearing what was the most desirable badge in the SUV industry up until a few years ago. Not only was this a powerful and capable on-road car, but people are finding that it can be turned into an off-roader or overland vehicle.
The company Eurowise is at the center of it all. They’ve personally converted dozens of Cayennes while offering customers all over the world access to a popular 3-inch suspension lift kit. This is the story of one such build, belonging to Finish entrepreneur and Porsche fanatic Roni Collin.
His personal car cave is home to a variety of cool projects, ranging from an Abarth race car to the Porsche 911 GT2 Touring that Porsche never built, basically a GT2 body except without the big wing at the back. Anyway, the 911 donated its Black Olive paint to the Cayenne, resulting in an SUV that’s so unique Porsche Finland even featured it.
Anyway, this started life as a 957, otherwise known as the facelift for the first generation of the Cayenne, which they made from 2007 until 2010. And this is a Turbo model, which would have been rated at 500 horsepower from the 4.8-liter turbocharged V8. Stock, it would have been capable of hitting 170 miles per hour (275 km/h), so as you can see, there are certain advantages to making an overland Porsche rather than a Jeep of Toyota Tacoma.
Why this is a Cayenne restomod
What we really love about this build is that it mixes and matches elements from other Porsches, basically making it similar to those famous 911 restomods. For example, those 33-inch-tall Yokohama all-terrain tires are wrapped around a set of BBS center lock wheels which would have been fitted to a 997 Cup race cars, only they’ve been painted black.
Both the front and the rear bumpers were removed, cut in half, and redesigned to fit around cage bumper guards. The delicate intercoolers of the 500 horsepower V8 have been relocated, and a new exhaust system was installed. The headlights have been modified with new bi-xenon internals and cool yellow off-road LEDs, a bit how you’d see modern tech on a Singer Porsche 911.
917 Tribute wooden shifter
The bit that really sells this whole Cayenne restomod idea is the wooden shifter knob. Roni Collins designed what he calls a “917 Tribute” which you can actually buy for your own car. Obviously, this SUV is automatic, but we still think it’s cool, the way the two shades of oiled oak and the aluminum shaft go with the gate of the Tiptronic. What an Outlaw!
The interior also features a set of Recaro bucket seats, a racing steering wheel, and switches installed where the infotainment would have been.
