Tackling Treacherous Arctic Circle in a Porsche

Porsche Cayenne and Macan Prove to Be Very Capable SUVs During Journalist’s Treacherous Winter Trek Across Finland

We love Porsche most for its near-unparalleled ability to make incredible sports cars. And a few of those sports cars, namely the 911 Turbo and GT3 RS, are all out supercars. And for the hell of it, let’s throw in the 918 Spyder, which is an undisputed hypercar. You get the picture: Porsche makes fast cars that are extremely capable. But what about the big elephant in the room, the one that sells more than all the others, the SUV?

As much as purists want to disregard how essential the SUV is to Porsche’s success, the facts don’t lie. The Porsche SUVs — the Cayenne and the Macan — are two of the better-selling cars in the lineup all over the world. But the good news is that even the SUVs are truly amazing cars.

Example A: The U.K.’s Globe and Mail recently took a a trip with Porsche across the Arctic Circle. Starting in Finland and proceeding from there, the team went through all sorts of treacherous terrain. Every now and then, they stopped for two of Finland’s delicacies: vodka and cooked reindeer. The things you learn quickest about Finland and the Arctic Circle, aside from the cuisine, are automotive related.

Matt Bubbers, the story’s writer took time not only to learn about Finland’s driving culture, but also how much motorsports has shaped the people that live there. Drivers in Finland face darkness and extreme snow for an extended period of the year, making their natural surroundings a potentially fatal situation if handled wrong.

So a rather important question is still left to be answered: Does Porsche, a company that until just years ago was known solely as a  sports-car manufacturer, have the means to produce two SUVs capable of handling one of the coldest areas on the planet? We’ll put it this way: There is a reason Porsche has sold nearly a million of these cars.

We will leave the details to be filled in by Bubbers himself. But there are two things to take away here: Porsche is just good at making cars, period, and Finland is cold and dark in December.