Price £58,243

MPG 34

Top speed 156mph

Being out of tune with the rest of the choir is a disconcerting experience. They go up, I go down – and what's that strange droning I hear, like a punctured bagpipe but less melodic? Ah yes, of course, it's me – singing. People often say they can't hold a tune, but I am properly rubbish. My own children used to ask me to stop when I sang them a lullaby. Don't believe me? Ask the music teacher at my school. I was the only pupil he actually asked to leave the choir: "I think we'll manage without you, Love."

Anyway, that's the feeling I've had this past week. I've been driving Porsche's Cayenne S Diesel. A high-performance V8 engine has been hefted into the German marque's bestseller with the intention of generating prodigious power at more palatable levels of fuel consumption. Porsche has succeeded in both: the hulking 2.3-tonner hits 62mph in 5.7 seconds (imagine an elephant in running blades and you'll get some idea as to how unnerving it is to be in vehicle that's so heavy and yet so fast); and yet it still does 34 miles to the gallon. The manufacturers claim a range of 700 miles – which is impressive, but to brim the 100-litre tank will cost you up to £150, so it's hardly cheap motoring. Palatable, but only in a bush-tucker trial way.

This Porsche SUV has sent the motoring press into a frenzy of delight. Top Gear advises: "Sell the hot hatch, the big estate and the 4x4 wagon. This one will do all that and more…" While MSN Cars lists 16 reasons, with all the breathless panic of an asthmatic, as to why the Cayenne S Diesel is the ultimate family car. But I must have been out of tune with the choir (again), as I couldn't stand it.

Inside story: the luxurious interior of the Cayenne.

It is indubitably a wondrous feat of technical brilliance, the pinnacle of sophisticated super-luxe motoring. But it doesn't half make you feel sick, and the drive is as lumpy as hospital custard. The nausea starts when you first see the car. I've never been a fan of its bulging aesthetics, but the test model I drove in ice white with black trim and smoked alloys would have felt more at home in a Star Wars tribute night in Chelmsford. The huge grill is as widely spaced as a cattle grid, while its foot-thick wheels and aggressive stance seem tiresomely 80s. Greed doesn't seem quite so good in these post-red-braces-and-a-magnum-of-fizz days, no matter what Boris says.

Clamber in and everything feels heavy and lumbering. Even the door is too heavy. My wife (who is admittedly pretty feeble) parked the car facing up the hill we live on and claimed she couldn't prop the door open with her leg.

The interior is as you would expect: a symphony of stitched leather, chrome and glossy piano plastics. But for a car with such a gigantic footprint it feels cramped. A Range Rover aspires to feel light and airy, but the Cayenne wraps itself around you like a dark, furtive glove.

And what about the engine that had so many hacks drooling? I found that heavy, too. The engines I love lift a car and send you skittering across the tarmac, weightless and agile. This one is a grinder. It shoves you along with all the brutal finesse of an ice breaker. Once up to speed it was impressive, but today driving is rarely about bounding along open roads.

For me, this Cayenne was a dirge, and I was expecting an aria.

Race2Recovery rally team

The Dakar rally began back in 1977, when Thierry Sabine got lost on his motorbike in the Libyan desert during the Abidjan-Nice rally. Saved from the sands in extremis, he returned to France still in thrall to this landscape and promising himself he would share his fascination with as many people as possible. He proceeded to come up with a route starting in Europe, continuing to Algiers and crossing Agadez before eventually finishing at Dakar. The founder coined a motto for his inspiration: "A challenge for those who go. A dream for those who stay behind." Courtesy of his great conviction and that modicum of madness peculiar to all great ideas, the plan quickly became a reality. Since then, the Paris-Dakar, a unique event sparked by the spirit of adventure, open to all riders and carrying a message of friendship between all people, has never failed to challenge, surprise and excite. Over the course of almost 30 years, it has generated innumerable sporting and human stories. And one of the most remarkable is that of the Race2Recovery rally team – the only disabled rally race team in the world. This video is about the team and the race.



Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @MartinLove166