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The Porsche Cayenne is always a sore subject when brought up. Often the primary transportation of upper-middle class housewives such as Carmela Soprano and alike, the Porsche purist cringes when one drives by. But in 2010, Porsche decided to add a little flair to it’s normally mundane and mall cruising SUV to honor their victories in the Transsyberian Rallies. What we got was a truly off-road capable vehicle. This 2010 Porsche Cayenne S Transsyberia located in Central Illinois can have you ready to tackle the woods in your Porsche — if you don’t mind the color orange.
Conventional enthusiast wisdom would say that if you want an older, sturdy German off-roader, you want a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen. However, that stance completely ignores a very important vehicle in Audi and Volkswagen’s history – the Iltis. The story is multi-faceted, but it boils down to two different stories; Volkswagen’s need for a replacement for both the Type 181 (“Thing”) and DKM Munga, and the birth of the legendary Audi Quattro. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Volkswagen consolidated the various Auto Union brands into a revised Audi lineup – the result of which was an opportunity to replace Mercedes-Benz as the German military vehicle supplier, a lucrative contract. To do so, Volkswagen built a new Type 183 vehicle using spare parts from the lineup of vehicles it now oversaw – the chassis was in large part based upon the earlier Munga, and the mechanical components based upon the Audi 100. The second story goes that in winter testing of some Audi and Volkswagen products, snow covered roads seemed to be the undoing of all but one of the lineup of cars brought along; the new Iltis simply left the other cars behind and impressed engineers Jorg Bensinger and Walter Treser (yes, that Treser), who theorized that the drive system could see road use. The result was the blueprint for the Audi Quattro that would debut in 1980, but not before Audi and Volkswagen won the Paris-Dakar Rally in 1980 with an Iltis. While the Quattro legend would take Audi to a whole new level in the 1980s, not much appreciation is given to the father of the Quattro – they’re rare to find for sale but offer a neat alternative to the normal off-roader:
I love finding anti-G55/G63 G-wagens, and here’s one that’s been used hard but is ready to go for more. It’s an Idaho off-roader, ready to take on trails and backcountry in a way that fully exploits its original intentions. Racks, lights, and big tires all create a great look in addition to being very useful, and the short wheelbase looks like a blast in the hills. It has low mileage but quite a bit of lurking rust, which should keep the price low.
On a recent bike trip, my girlfriend and I had some long climbs up the foothills of the Bay Area on tree-lined, one-lane switchbacks. On one particularly gorgeous but hidden stretch, she yelled “look at the cool Unimog down there!” Thankful as I am that my partner knows what a Mog is, it was actually a fascinating Pinzgauer 4×4 that looked like it was prepared to be an RV for the zombie apocalypse. While that particular model looked prepared to keep people out, today’s 6×6 model looks like it wants to let anyone and anything crawl in while it dominates terrain. With heated seats, a huge truck bed, and one of the most stout external rollcages I’ve seen, I’m not sure what it’s for other than what the dudes are doing in the photo – but just riding in it looks pretty fun.
No 1% household is complete without the obligatory SUV. Most opt for the Range Rover; actually I think they are mandatory in certain neighborhoods. In…
