THE DAKAR'S LOST ANCESTOR

The Dakar's Lost Ancestor

Getting up close and personal with the oft-overlooked 957 Cayenne Transsyberia.

Quick! Name a limited-run, high-performance Porsche of the 2000s with orange wheels and body decals. A 997 GT3 RS? Well, yes, but also no.

What if I were to tell you that one of the rarest, most focused and most heavily modified Porsches ever to hit the streets wasn’t a 911 or a special-edition transaxle car…but a Cayenne. Enter the Porsche Cayenne S Transsyberia, a special edition of the sports SUV built to celebrate Porsche’s success in the Rally Transsyberia, a gruelling off-road challenge stretching from Berlin to Lake Baikal in the Siberian wilderness.

Nicky Ramchandani’s Transsyberia is the latest in a long series of high-performance Cayennes that he’s owned. “It honestly started with curiosity. My first Porsche was probably the world’s cheapest 2005 Cayenne Turbo. I bought it at a Police auction in Dubai; lying in the desert impound lot for years before it came up for sale.” Nicky recalls. “ I thought it was grey, but it turned out to be a completely different colour once I cleaned the dust off.”

I met Nicky well into his Cayenne journey, which had snowballed into four Turbos and a GTS by the time the Transsyberia came around. “We have a classifieds section in our Cayenne off-road community, where people occasionally post cars for sale. One day someone in Oman posted a silver Cayenne, but the photos looked like they were taken in 1995; grainy, badly lit, and you could barely see the car.”

Yet one detail, or more accurately five details, set off Nicky’s Spidey-senses. Buried among the low-res photo gallery were a few orange pixels; the seatbelts, which let him know that this was no ordinary Cayenne.

“I messaged the owner straight away and asked him to send me the VIN, which I passed to a contact of mine at Porsche Middle East. The answer confirmed what I had suspected, that it was a genuine 2010 Porsche S Cayenne Transsyberia. At that point there wasn’t much thinking involved. I made an offer almost immediately, and the owner drove the car down from Oman to Dubai.”

Just 285 cars were produced for 2010, and they were far more than a marketing exercise. It may have been badged an ‘S,’ but the Transsyberia came equipped with the Cayenne GTS’s 405hp engine.

Only 16 cars came in the ultra-rare, race-spec Crystal Silver/Orange graphic combination you see here, with the rest having been produced Black/Orange, Black/Meteor Grey or Meteor Grey/Silver.

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“Its first owner was the Sultan of Oman. He loved the car and drove it everywhere, but because of how obvious it was in orange and silver, he had it sent back to Porsche to remove the external Transsyberia trim."

A shorter 4.11:1 final drive ratio meant for quicker acceleration and increased wheel torque, which helped off-road alongside a higher ride height from the PASM-equipped air suspension and full-length underbody protection. Optional equipment included a locking rear differential, snorkel, light bar and additional rock-guards underneath.

Only 16 cars came in the ultra-rare, race-spec Crystal Silver/Orange graphic combination you see here, with the rest having been produced Black/Orange, Black/Meteor Grey or Meteor Grey/Silver.

Yet none of this was obvious when Nicky first took ownership of his Transsyberia, because it looked like any other Cayenne - save for the orange seatbelts which he had noticed in the advert.

“Its first owner was the Sultan of Oman.” Nicky says, with a cheeky grin. “He loved the car and drove it everywhere, but because of how obvious it was in orange and silver, he had it sent back to Porsche to remove the external Transsyberia trim. It was then fitted with a Turbo bumper and bonnet, and livery was stripped off - along with the roof lights.”

For Nicky it was the perfect opportunity to restore a gem to its original state. “When a car this rare appears, especially in this part of the world, you don’t hesitate.”

It’s near-pristine, and totally different from Nicky’s previous dune-bashing builds. “My goal was to respect what Porsche originally created with the Transsyberia program, keeping it as true as possible to the spirit of the factory rally cars.”

From behind the wheel, the Transsyberia feels remarkable. It’s still a Cayenne, but faced with the orange instruments and Alcantara seats, you can always tell you’re in something special.