Most people know the Porsche Cayenne Turbo as the scourge of school drop-off zones and Starbucks drive-thrus everywhere. Finally, people are taking these things off the pavement and into what should be their natural territory: mud! Muck! Dirt! Grime! YES.
Of course, there are reasons why the Cayennes have such a squeaky-clean, un-fun reputation. Brand new, these Porsche trucks started at $88,900. The Robb Report—a default subscription on the so-called good life for every insufferable finance bro you’ll meet in college—even named it their Car of the Year in 2004.
You can now pick up first-generation Cayenne Turbos in all their turbocharged V8 glory for even less than my parents paid for my Mitsubishi Lancer. Bless you, depreciation.
And thus, meet $13,000 second-hand Porsche “Sea Beef.” Sea Beef is a mostly-stock 2004 Cayenne Turbo kitted out with nubby off-road tires designed for use by Ford Raptors and a big winch on the back. Its owner Ash picked it up for cheap with busted motor mounts and differential problems and brought it back to life with junkyard parts.
Bone stock, the Porsche’s airbag suspension is adjustable by about a foot for fording water, and the truck’s center locking differential and traction control system help it find traction in lieu of front or rear lockers. In other words, it deserves to get dirtier than that one time your friend spilled pumpkin spice garbage in the floorboard.
Look, I’m tired of explaining that the Cayenne Transsyberia is a thing (a real, capable thing!) to people who don’t understand my mild obsession with Porsche’s big crossover. Sea Beef is my spirit animal, distilled into egg-shaped posh-truck form that rips through the mud.
Go forth and do some rallycross, too, my friend. Get dirty. More dirty. Always more dirty.
[H/T Grant!]