Yesterday, a tech billionaire made news not for the usual insipid reasons that make most of us roll our eyes, but rather for something far more benign: a customized car. The billionaire in question this time was Mark Zuckerberg, the guy who started Facebook, bought Instagram, and gave us that weird, now-dead Metaverse virtual reality/neo-Second Life thing where nobody had legs. Well, in actual reality, Zuckerberg – who does appear to have actual legs – has had a special customized Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT stretch and made in a sort of “minivan.” I’m not sure it actually fits in to the minivan order, but I do think it’s fun, and I’m somewhat surprised to the blowback that it’s gotten online. Because if you have a problem with this build, I think you’re wrong.
Actually, I really shouldn’t be surprised about blowback. This is the internet, after all, and anyone could post about making themselves a sandwich and have a reasonable expectation there will be hordes of commenters letting them know that sandwich is the worst, most miserable thing in existence and what’s more, it’s an immoral sandwich that encapsulates everything wrong in the world now, with too much mustard. I get that.
In this case, though, I think it makes sense to defend this rich man’s car, which isn’t something I’m generally inclined to do – at least in part because they’re generally not this interesting.
Okay, first, here’s the Insta post where the car was revealed:
View this post on Instagram
So, what’s going on here is that the Zuckerberg family, which now seems to have three offspring, at least two of whom are named after cars (Maxima and Aurelia, though I can’t prove it was specifically the Nissan and Lancia cars they were named for) and that means the Zucks need something to haul a bunch of kids around in. They need a minivan, because, whether we like to admit it or not, we almost all do, at least sometimes.
So, Zuckerberg got a new Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT– the “coupé” one (it’s not really a coupé, it just has a more raked fastback) – which makes about 650 horsepower, gets to 60 in 3.1 seconds, and can go just 10 mph shy of 200 mph. You know, solid minivan-requirement specs. As a self-respecting minivan, this thing needs sliding doors, so the Cayenne was taken to West Coast Customs, who stretched the SUV and added a pair of sliding doors.
Inside, there’s a second row with captain’s chairs, and what appears to be a bench seat behind that, making this Cayenne a legitimate seven-seater, meaning there’s enough room for the whole Zuckerberg family and two more, maybe personal assistants or astrologers or whomever they like to travel with.
Response to the stretched Cayenne has been surprisingly mixed, I think. While there’s been plenty of positive takes, there’s also been a surprising amount of anger and revulsion and wrath:
I’m mostly addressing the people who seem to have an issue with the stretched Cayenne itself when I say that they’re wrong: people against it because of who Zuckerberg is or even in favor of it for who he is I’m ignoring because I just don’t care about that. Being super-into some billionaire, any of them, feels a little weird to me, anyway. No, we’re here to just talk about the car.
So, with that in mind, let’s dig in:
First, It’s Not Really A Minivan. It’s More Of A Limo
This has been brought up by a good number of people commenting in various places already, but it’s worth noting: Just stretching an SUV and adding sliding doors does not a minivan make. A minivan is about proportion! A minivan is taller in proportion to length, generally has a truncated hood, and a more box-like body. I once defined van traits as these:
 • A main, box-like body designed to maximize interior volume
• A hood-to-overall-body ratio (hood is measured from the base of the A-pillar to the front end) significantly less than most other vehicle types. That is, a van should have a relatively short hood for its body length
• A taller body than most other vehicles
• An integrated cab with only one row of seats (even if more seating is available in the rear section)
• (Usually) Side doors designed to facilitate loading and unloading of bulky objects or larger numbers of people. Can be sliding doors or swing-out doors.
A minivan can fit seven people in the same space, length-wise, as a conventional car. This thing can’t because it actually has become a limo more than anything else. Sure, sliding doors aren’t common on a limo, but stretching a car inside of its wheelbase and not changing any other dimension is what a limo is, fundamentally. And that’s what this is: a stretched Cayenne Turbo GT Limo with sliding doors. But it can certainly work like a minivan, in the sense it’ll haul a lot of people!
There is some precedent here, too: back in 1967, a Porsche dealer named William Dick had a 911 stretched into a four-door for his wife, and that process was pretty much the same basic limoification process used on that Cayenne. Make it longer, add doors.
Second, This Is Way Better Than Him Buying Some Dumb Fancy Off-The-Rack SUV
This is the real meat of everything, right here: there’s no reason why the Zuck couldn’t have just bought some Lamborghini Urus or Bugatti Bentayaga or Rolls-Royce Cullinan or some other hyper-expensive big dumb SUV. That would have been the easy way, and it’s significant that that’s not the route taken. Instead, we get something genuinely bonkers, and that’s what we advocate!
If we’re going to have people on Earth with absurd amounts of money, why shouldn’t they spend that money with independent craftspeople and artisans to build one-of-a-kind bonkers cars? Maybe we should demand that this is what happens, legally, enforced with a crack team of commandos who will work over any billionaire who bores the public buying some expected bullshit luxury or supercar!
The more custom weird shit, the better. Besides, it’s not like a Cayenne is some precious thing; it’s fine to turn one of these into something ridiculous!
It’s Not His Fault He Can’t Get A Good Luxury Minivan
It’s also worth noting that there really aren’t any good premium-brand, luxury minivans you can just buy in America. The Kia Carnival, for example, is a great minivan with a striking design and well-equipped, but it’s still branded a Kia, and, even worse, named for an event best known for deep-fried stunt foods and creepy carnies, neither of which America’s upper classes go out of their way to be associated with.
Brand snobbery is absolutely idiotic, but it’s real, and it seems absurd that Toyota hasn’t re-badged one of their Japan-market luxury minivans like the Alphard or Vellfire as a Lexus yet. Why not? It makes no sense! There should be luxury minivan options for just normal-rich rich people, the same people who end up buying luxury SUVs like Lincoln Navigators or Cadillac Escalades or, yes, regular Cayennes, because a minivan is objectively better than an SUV at the job of moving six to nine people in comfort.
It’s only the idiotic minivan stigma that prevents this from happening, and I dearly hope that’s on its way out.
Remember, companies have toyed with this idea before! Even Porsche experimented with minivan ideas, on multiple occasions. They put 911 engines in Vanagons, and they also had their own unique designs, like the Varerra in the early ’90s:
If anything, the lesson from Zuckerberg’s Stretching of the Cayenne is that the Age of Premium Minivans is about to begin. We’ve been waiting far too long already.
My problem is that folks with FU money like Zuck just don’t show any imagination. He could have something coachbuilt with real style and function and he does…this.
My only complaint is that the window trim around the door’s window doesn’t seem to match the window trim around the other windows (and including the door track). Otherwise, you do you and I’ll appreciate a custom job done well.
My goodness, so many people are just mad because Zuck has too much money. One could choose to ignore the Zuckerburg of it all, and instead inspect the work that was done by a small group of highly skilled auto enthusiasts, and be happy that those guys get to live doing what they love passionately (building custom cars) only because obscenely rich people want silly custom crap.
I, in many ways, despise checkbook modifiers of vehicles who claim credit for building the car. But I’m grateful they exist regardless, because they are the ones paying for some guy in a garage to love what he does building those parts or those cars. Spend more. I’ll build Zuck a custom!
Preach, brother. A long time ago I once heard someone make a comment about the rich that has stuck with me and changed my attitude toward the well-monied for all time.
Whoever it was pointed out that one of the roles of the rich in society is conspicuous consumption. An economy’s health depends on the flow of wealth through the system and if the rich save their money then it is stagnating, choking the economy. It’s their job to blow their money as wildly, foolishly, and lavishly as they can, for the good of the society that enriched them.
When I manage to tamp down the jealously and envy enough to think about it objectively, that sounds right to me, at least in the modern capitalist societies.
So now when I see a new insane super yacht, custom fitted heavy helicopter, or stretched Porsche I think, “Good for them. They’re on the job, doing their part.” And if whatever nonsense they’re up to is cool, like this Cayenne, or insane to a particularly noteworthy degree, like the yacht with the underwater observation deck or a spaceship, so much the better.
I’m all for it, except that IMO there is way too much length between the rear doorlines and the rear wheels. Cut the third row and uyou’d still have som decent proportions!
Otherwise, yeah I think this is the right kind of silly.
All that money, and he still paints it GRAY????
reminds him of his home planet