A Porsche Cayenne S diesel has towed an Air France Airbus A380 weighing 285-tonnes at Charles de Gaulle Airport, setting a new Guinness World Record for heaviest aircraft pull by a production car, by a margin of 115-tonnes. The Cayenne has dethroned Nissan Patrol which towed a 170-ton cargo in 2013.
Air France devoted its 60,000 square metre engineering hangar and one of its fleet of 10 A380 aircraft for the project. A special tow hook was attached to the Cayenne for the job of pulling the largest commercial aircraft over a distance of 42 metres. The Cayenne’s 4.1 litre V8 biturbo makes 385 hp and an enormous 850 Nm of torque. The exercise was then repeated using a Porsche Cayenne Turbo S, which packs a 4.8 litre V8 biturbo, producing 570 hp and 800 Nm of torque.
Behind the wheel was Richard Payne, a technician at Porsche GB. He said, “It did it – I’m so relieved! We don’t usually go this far to test the limits of our cars but I think today we got pretty close. 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. Credit should go to the team in Stuttgart who developed the car – they did a thorough job. I’m also very grateful to Air France and its engineers for their generosity in allowing me to tow their beautiful aircraft.”
Porsche says the car was driven from London to Paris and back again.
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