I'm not a cowboy, farmer or gardener. I don't build or repair things. I don't own a motorcycle, skimobile, ATV or boat. If I buy something too big to fit in my SUV, I have it delivered. In other words, I'm not a pickup truck kinda guy. But when my local paper's editor asked me— a writer who considers a triple digit sprint down a German autobahn a religious event— to review a truck, I went and got me a truck: Ford's F250 "King Ranch".

I chose it for the name. Texas' privately held King Ranch is larger than my home state of Rhode Island. And so is the King Ranch pickup truck. Obviously, this four-door Super Duty variant doesn't occupy 1300 square miles of real estate. It just looks that way. Parked on a driveway, its roof clearance lights glinting somewhere in the stratosphere, the King Ranch makes an average-sized American house look puny. It's the automotive equivalent of that endlessly annoying punch line, "Everything's bigger in Texas!"

First, the good news: the Porsche Cayenne is a hit. Since its release up to this July, American dealers have flogged 6350 Cayennes. The SUV's sales have lifted turnover in Porsche's key market by 15%. With the introduction of a cheaper, six-cylinder Cayenne (sans S) in '04, Stuttgart's SUV business should continue to grow apace.

Now the bad news: the Porsche Cayenne is a hit. The increase masks a 21% sales drop for 911s and Boxsters. Bottom line: the Porsche Cayenne has transformed the world's pre-eminent sports car manufacturer into a truck maker with an ailing sports car business attached.