This summer, I played an obnoxious game. Every time I spotted that iconic gold-and-red crest on the nose of a car, I stopped what I was doing and called out, “Porsche.” Where I live, they’re everywhere. I saw them loading up with groceries at Costco, hauling wood at Home Depot, waiting in line for french fries at McDonald’s. I thought this was just Georgetown, but then, on a family road trip to Chicago: “Porsche. Porsche. Porsche.”

Most people think of the Porsche as a luxury car, but these vehicles are not out joyriding. They’re doing work. The model I spot most often is not a sports car, not Steve McQueen’s flashy 911S or Tom Cruise’s doomed 928 from Risky Business. It’s an S.U.V., the Porsche Cayenne. Now, I’m someone who’s supposed to be in the market for an S.U.V.: two kids, a house whose driveway will never fit a mom van, and a massive monthly grocery haul. So, one morning this August, I went over to the Porsche dealership in Northern Virginia to see just how “practical luxury” feels.

The dealership’s A.I. assistant double-booked my appointment, so I circled a classic red RUF on the display floor until a sales manager I’ll call Miguel led me back to his office. He scanned my driver’s license and then took me to a white Cayenne with smooth, softly sensual curves. He opened the door for me, revealing beige leather seats and a sweep of screens. It was very techy; Porsche did away with things like physical odometers and manual gearshifts with the 2024 redesign, and now it’s all taps and flicks. Miguel demonstrated how to put the car in drive and park, and I mentally rehearsed a few times before putting my foot on the pedal.

“You know, the Cayenne actually saved Porsche in America,” Miguel said as I steered us cautiously down Route 1 toward the George Washington Parkway. Back in the early 2000s, sports cars like the 911 were selling okay, but Porsche needed something heftier to appeal to the American consumer. (This, after all, was the era of the Hummer’s peak popularity.) So the company rolled out the S.U.V. in 2003, and now it’s the most popular model. Miguel can’t afford one himself, he admitted, but he does get to drive them occasionally. He praised the car’s handling; you can’t feel the road in the Cayenne as much as in other models, but you can still fly. I wasn’t flying now, but I tried to imagine the sensation. The Cayenne drives like what it is: a quality piece of German engineering, but it’s still an S.U.V. It’s hard to imagine anyone taking it out just for a spin.

Miguel offered to give me a quote. The loaner I just drove, a barely used 2026 model, could put one of my daughters through college. Is that number in the ballpark, do I think? Do I want to come back and try another model?

Umm. I said I would get back to him. He shook my hand, and I walked back out into the hot sun, feeling deflated. The luxury was practical, all right. Still, something was missing. I hadn’t crashed the car. Yet I hadn’t exactly experienced the joyride of my dreams either. Porsche was built to bring the racetrack to the road; for most of us the prospect is just a fantasy.

In the parking lot, I noticed a black 944 from sometime in the 1980s. A tanned old man with gleaming white hair climbed out, and I caught a flash of red leather. He opened the back door for his passenger, and out hopped a perky little poodle. For the first time that morning I felt the stirrings of envy. Nothing about this man was in any way practical. He did not need to marry work and pleasure, as Cayenne customers feel they must.

But as he ambled off to the Porsche lounge, babbling puppy talk all the way, I looked again. How funny, really, that his life of luxury—or at least his sweet ride—is underwritten by the indulgence of a fleet of soccer moms in S.U.V.s.