Review and test Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT

Should the hectic daily life ever reach the boiling point and you want to do absolutely nothing for a week, then the Swedish island of Gotland is a good destination. The top rated activity on Trip Advisor is literally looking at a stone wall there. In a wild mood you can see filming locations from Pippi Longstocking attend. The island is the unlikely place for one of the most exciting circuits we’ve experienced in a long time. The track is the perfect place for Porsche to prove that a 2,220kg SUV – the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT – really belongs on the track.

The story becomes even more improbable when you hear that the Gotland Ring is the world’s first sustainable circuit, and we bark over it with a rolling environmental crime: V8, two turbos and 640 horsepower without hybrid assistants. The reason we are exactly here is not to compensate for the emissions directly, but because the circuit is a kind of mix of the circuits of Portimão, Bilster Berg and the Nürburgring Nordschleife.

The latter is where the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT can call itself the fastest SUV. Experience shows that a potent cocktail can provide a lot of fun, but the danger is lurking. Again, the tarmac of the Gotland Ring, more than 7 kilometers long, largely follows the landscape as it was left by the company that once mined limestone. Many height differences, blind bends, twisters and even a real jump.

You can feel the weight of the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT

The Cayenne does not immediately give the confidence to go full throttle, it feels too much like an SUV for that; the high center of gravity and high weight are palpable. Per bend we find a little more guts and damn: he can do it. And for every corner where we drop the pace out of caution, the 4.0-litre V8’s 640 horsepower makes up for it.

In the corners we carve well, the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT diligently follows the line with more grip than you’d think possible from an SUV. In the corners where we struggle a bit, we feel the systems polish away the imbalance. You can feel and hear the torque vectoring brake the wheels individually; the active roll stabilization keeps the car upright. If you go a little too greedy on the gas when exiting the corner, you notice that the rear could break out, but that the systems ensure that the car remains well-mannered. In a straight line, it’s just an antisocially fast machine. With a 0-to-100 time of 3.3 seconds, the Cayenne Turbo GT is even faster than the Lamborghini Urus. Nice detail: it is almost as expensive in the Netherlands.

The Cayenne will do for a while

When braking hard after a fast straight, the rear becomes light and the high weight is most noticeable. There is no question of overworked discs or pads thanks to the standard ceramic brake stuff. The Cayenne isn’t quite as fast and agile as a Porsche 911, but our reservations about the concept of a track SUV are slowly fading. It really is a Cayenne with GT3 ambitions.

Towards the end of the first heat, after only three rounds of steering, the laws of nature get the upper hand. The front tires start to lose traction and the display behind the steering wheel shows 3.5 bar tire pressure, a sign that the front wheels are getting too hot. Something you would have less quickly with a lighter 911 Turbo, for example. More track experience – which gives you a smoother steer over it – and a little less tire pressure would help in this case.

Not just any tires

The tires were specially developed by Pirelli for this Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT. Also specific to this model are the carbon fiber tailpipes on the roof spoiler and the extra high spoiler on the lid, which generates up to 40 kilos of downforce. Porsche only places the titanium exhaust with central tailpipes under this model. The exhaust weighs about 18 kilos less and the carbon fiber roof eats away 21 kilos. Porsche found a rear seat too heavy, so the brand places two separate seats in the back. In addition, you will find gold accents throughout the car (they call this Neodyme themselves), even the seat belts.

Porsche finishes the interior with a large piece of Alcantara. You can even get a steering wheel that is completely covered in Alcantara, including an indicator strip at the top. Doing it anyway, this helps with the racing feel of the car. Lane assistance is also not possible with this steering wheel because the hand-detection does not work, and that is apparently mandatory for cars with this assistant.

The Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT on the road

After a short cool-down we leave the circuit to explore the island. Although the tarmac on Gotland is good, we immediately notice that the Cayenne is always on the firm side, even in normal mode. You are never disconnected from the road surface. The thin Alcantara steering wheel also indicates exactly the type of surface and the V8 is always ready to launch you. No, the Cayenne Turbo GT definitely doesn’t have an off button. The Turbo S E-Hybrid’s split personality – which is still quite jovial in hybrid or electric mode – is absent from the Turbo GT.

This Cayenne is the friend who pours the aforementioned vicious mixed drink. Plus three more. Or six. And when you wake up the next day with your head pounding and see the chance that this is the day you will meet your childhood hamster Señor Wollie again in the afterlife, he’s the one who storms into your bedroom with a repair beer. Because we have to go on; there are still so many bad decisions to make. He is the ultimate pacesetter, but you know that sooner or later things will go wrong. The Swedish island where you are not allowed to go faster than 70 km/h and where the Dutch fines seem like a mere deposit, makes an almost inhumane appeal to your self-control.

Does it really help you?

That’s the problem with the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT. It does what it’s made for perfectly. It’s an incredibly potent and impressive machine, but how many people actually use their SUV on the track? When we asked at Porsche, the answer was ‘more than the customers of other brands’. No doubt, because two is more than zero. The question is a bit: what’s in it for you? The better question is, why are we asking these silly questions? People just want the fastest and the thickest – and this gets you pretty close.