When you're thinking of tow cars, Porsche probably isn't a name that immediately springs to mind. That could change, because a diesel Cayenne has just broken the Guinness World Record for Heaviest aircraft pull by a production car.
Weighing in at a whopping 285 tonnes (314 tons), the Air France A380 pulled by the Porsche is a not-insignificant 115-tonnes (128-tons) heavier than the previous record holder. It's also significantly heavier than the 100-tonne (110-ton) train that Land Rover used to prove the pull of its four-cylinder diesel Discovery Sport, although the Cayenne is a bigger car.
Aside from a heavier-duty tow bar, the Cayenne S Diesel S used for the pull was unmodified from stock. That means it was making a standard 385 hp (287 kW) of power and 850 Nm (627 lb-ft) of torque, all put to the road through an unchanged all-wheel drive system. As if to show off, the company also repeated the stunt for the cameras in a Cayenne Turbo S after the record attempt was done.
"We don't usually go this far to test the limits of our cars but I think today we got pretty close," Richard Payne, technician at Porsche Great Britain. "I could tell that it was working hard but the Cayenne didn't complain and just got on with it. My mirrors were quite full of Airbus, which was interesting. Our cars can go a bit beyond what our customers might expect – they're designed to be tough. But even so, what the Cayenne did today was remarkable – we drove the car here from London – and I plan to drive it home again, having towed an A380 in between."
You can watch the Cayenne pulling the Air France A380 in the video below.
Source: Porsche
