The Porsche Cayenne Turbo was among the most divisive cars of the early noughties. Yet if it hadn’t survived all of the slings and arrows of public opinion aimed at it since 2002, and gone on to establish such a clearly profitable business model in spite of all the hate, would the Lamborghini Urus, the Bentley Bentayga, the Rolls-Royce Cullinan and now the Ferrari Purosangue have followed? This was the car to first provide concrete evidence that wealthy people were ready to spend big money on seriously fast and desirable luxury SUVs. And now it’s out to battle its way back to the top of the niche that it created.
The Cayenne Turbo GT is a new top-of-the-range performance derivative for the Cayenne model line. Available only with the lower-roofed Cayenne Coupé bodystyle, it features as standard every active suspension, steering and braking technology offered optionally on lesser Cayenne models, but also represents a thorough technical reworking of many of those systems, and features a widely upgraded turbocharged V8 engine to boot. It’s a product whose intent is “to fully exploit the dynamic potential” of the Cayenne: a statement that, if delivered on, ought to send shivers to various offices around the European luxury car business.
This week, then, we find out just how well Porsche can make a 2.3-tonne luxury SUV handle when fully committing to the idea, and exactly how fast that SUV can be made to accelerate and stop as verified by our satellite timing gear. Get ready for some startling numbers.