The Porsche name is one that every person who claims to like cars (and this writer counts himself as one) is familiar with. It is one that evokes history and, thanks to that most iconic of sportscars, the 911, is a synonym for speed. So, when the kind gentlemen of Porcshe Middle East & Africa called and asked if I would like to have a go at driving their vehicles about a bit on an airstrip, the word 'No' wasn't exactly the first word that came to mind. Actually, no words came to mind, because one was already drooling.

The first thing you realise when you are strapped into the driver's seat of a Porsche 911 is that it really isn't quite the same as driving one on Sony Computer Entertainment's fantastic Gran Turismo video game. No, believe me, it is nowhere close. No matter how realistic the graphics are, and no matter how dynamic the game developers make the vehicle physics, the feeling you get when you floor the throttle and discover that a microsecond later, your spinal cord is melting into the front seat, is not possible to duplicate. Oh yeah, there is the sound as well; no matter what you say, it just feels different when you have the flat-six 3.8 litre engine whizzing at 8,000 revolutions right behind your posterior transferring all 355 of its horses to the asphalt.

Why the video game comparison? Because in all honesty, until now, this reporter had never driven a car with the city of Stuttgart's crest on it other than on Gran Turismo or Electronic Arts' Need For Speed series. However, to be fair, speed for speed's sake has been achieved more than a few times- the fastest being 250 kmph in an Audi A8 (with witnesses). But, while a leviathan like the A8 lumbers (fairly fast) towards high speed, a 911 is insane. One second you're still, five seconds later you've crossed 120 kmph and the digital speedo is blurring.

This one's taken: Sebastian definitely knew how to handle these beauties

Then you hit the brakes.

Sheer acceleration is one thing. Stopping from a tad under 200 kmph hour to a dead-stop in four seconds flat-in barely 50 metres, and hear this, with your hands off, yes, off, the steering wheel but maintaining a straight line-is an experience to remember. Now, this reporter has floored lots of cars and gone very fast and driven several thousand kilometres in test-drive vehicles, but nothing, nothing has ever come close to matching this.

Okay, the dirty little secret over here is that Porsche is not an absolutely insane company. To make sure that journalists don't completely lose the plot, it made sure that a strict German instructor from its training centre sat next to us while driving. And to make sure that egos don't bloat up to unimaginable sizes, before the journalists were allowed to grip the steering wheel, they got a round of the circuit the way "it should be done", or rather, in my case, a "let's see you hold on to your breakfast" round.

Our instructor Sebastian, a rally driver by profession, just let his driving do the talking, and the unused Amby Valley airstrip we drove on had been nicely made into a little 2-km long circuit with a few short straights and some sharp, twisty chicanes.

PORSCHE CAYENNE TURBO Price: Rs 1 Crore Engine: 4511 cc, 450 hp Kerb Weight: 2,355 kg Top Speed: N.A. 0-100 kmph: N.A. The Cayenne will be updated in early 2007

We managed to sink our grubby commoner hands around two models of the 911 (sadly, not the 911 Turbo) but before that, Porsche wanted to showcase its other vehicles as well. So, we got a round in the Cayenne Sports-Utility Vehicle and the Cayman, a hard-top version of the Boxster roadster over two quite different challenges.

The Cayenne, Porsche's best-selling car in India, according to Ashish Chordia, Chief Executive, Shreyans Motors, Porsche's distributor in the country, is quite a capable SUV, but in this country, like in many other places, most owners never get a chance to highlight this vehicle's tremendous off-road capabilities.

One says tremendous because the car can really do things that few other vehicles can and not just because of the turbocharged 4.5 litre, 450 horsepower engine. The car managed a 25-degree side incline as if it was child's play and even more impressive was its "Hill Holder" function, wherein if one takes one's foot off the pedal on an incline, the car just stays put- and the car was on a 30-degree, albeit rather small, hillock. But, the reason this car sells so well, is mainly because of its massive road-clearance-up to 270 mm compared to the road-hugging profiles of the rest of the Porsche range. And when confronted with potholes-the Porsche team had kindly dug a few bomb craters beforehand-the Cayenne thundered through as if it were a baby elephant-come to think of it, a rather oversized baby elephant.

Once the off-road section was dealt with, the instructors allowed us behind the wheel to have a little go on the straight of the airstrip. When you open this monster up, with a huge roar and a slight shudder as the turbo kicks in, this three-ton leviathan moves like its smaller siblings. Mind you, Porsche does not insure you for the damage that driving one of these will do to your petrol bill.

PORSCHE BOXSTER S Price: Starts from Rs 60 lakh Engine: 3179 cc, 280 hp Kerb weight: 1,385 kg Top Speed: approx. 270 kmph 0-100 kmph: 5.4 secs

But, if the Cayenne impresses with its off-road handling, the Cayman does so with its on-road handling. The Porsche team had set up a short 250-metre-long slalom (zig-zag to you non-autolytes) course. Now, moving a car on a slalom course is never easy; such a course puts tremendous pressure on the suspension and the body. The Cayman handled this immaculately, while drivers knotted their arms twisting the wheel from side to side. Sebastian took the drivers out on a spin down the circuit before we got a chance to put the 295 horsepower Cayman S through its paces. Let's just put it like this, Sebastian finished his run in under 25 seconds; the fastest this writer could manage was a shade over 32 seconds. The fastest person in the entire troupe of journalists could manage only 30 seconds flat. But, it wasn't just about the timed runs, which this reporter wasn't really great at; the slalom run is great, unadulterated fun for any petrol-head.

The event, which Porsche had organised as part of a roadshow for customers and potential customers, was an unmitigated success. Of course, as Mohamed Rehman, Managing Director, Porsche Centre India, admitted, the company didn't expect to sell a lot of cars because of this, "but when a person wants to buy a performance vehicle, hopefully, he will think of Porsche".

Increased sales of luxury and sportscars are usually indicative of a booming economy and as the Indian economy is on high heat, sales can only improve and events like this can only help. But, no matter how hot the economy is, it is unlikely that reporters or editors in this country will be keeping any of these on their driveways anytime in the near, or for that matter distant future. The cheapest car in the Porsche line-up is the open-top Boxster S that sells for a cool Rs 60 lakh; the top-end 911 Turbo comes in at an even more eye-popping Rs 1.5 crore, but that doesn't mean that the 1:18 scale model of the Cayenne won't get a prominent place on the mantelpiece! The real one costs a crore by the way!

However, if you do want to buy one of these, and if you have a crore lying around to spare, you can visit the Porsche showrooms:

In Delhi @ Porsche Centre India, A-31 Mohan Co-operative Industrial Area, Mathura Road.

In Mumbai @ Shreyans Motors, 13, N.S Patkar Marg.