Test Car Specifications
Model: 2024 Porsche Cayenne GTS
Price: From £106,100
Engine: 4.0-litre turbocharged V8 petrol
Transmission: eight-speed automatic, all-wheel drive
Power: 500hp
Torque: 660Nm
Emissions: 287-303g/km
Economy: 21.2-22.4mpg
0-62mph: 4.4 seconds
Top speed: 171mph
Boot space: 656-1,708 litres
Styling
Porsche has done a fair bit to the GTS's styling in order to differentiate it from its siblings, though it's still recognisable as a Cayenne. It's just a Cayenne with the Sport Design bodywork, marked out primarily by its more intricate front bumper, and some glossy black trim around the windows and on the badging. Porsche has also fitted some dark alloy wheels, behind which you'll find red callipers (as long as you stick with the standard steel brakes). Smoked light lenses are standard, too, and Porsche has fitted a panoramic glass roof as standard to the Coupe versions.
Interior
As with the exterior, the GTS upgrades are tweaks, rather than wholesale changes. You get the same basic dashboard design and the same technology as the standard Cayenne, which means there’s a digital instrument display and a big touchscreen, while a passenger touchscreen display is offered as an option. As usual, it’s all beautifully made, although we aren’t sure about some of the ergonomic decisions — namely the decision to put the gear selector on the dash.
Odd gear lever positioning aside, what the GTS does add is a sense of sportiness, courtesy of Porsche’s Race-Tex microfibre material. It’s a kind of suede, and it’s found on the GTS’s seat inserts, roof lining and dashboard, alongside GTS logos in the head restraints and a smaller, sportier steering wheel.
You can also choose a red stitching pack that adds red seatbelts for a dash of colour, and that’s welcome because the cabin is quite dark. Particularly with the brushed black dashboard trim. It’s also well worth specifying the panoramic glass roof, which sheds a bit more light on a cabin that feels much more claustrophobic than it really is.
Practicality
Although the Cayenne GTS's cabin feels a bit claustrophobic thanks to the sea of black upholstery, it is more spacious than it first appears. Take the boot, for example, which offers 656 litres of cargo capacity with all five seats upright and more than 1,700 litres when you fold the rear bench down. That's pretty good going for something so fast, and we can't see many customers complaining about that kind of carrying capability, which is roughly on a par with the more lumpen BMW X5.
Interior space is impressive, too, and the Cayenne's rear seats are more than capable of carrying two tall adults in immense comfort. Legroom is very generous, and headroom is more than ample, which means you won't get complaints of cramp from those in the rear seats. Even the middle seat is usable, albeit not on very long drives thanks to the narrow shoulder space.
Performance
As with other GTS-badged cars in the Porsche range, outright power is not the Cayenne GTS’s forte, and those in it for the Top Trumps bragging rights may well be disappointed. Obviously, with a tuned-up version of the S’s 4.0-litre turbocharged V8 petrol engine, eight-speed automatic gearbox and all-wheel drive, it’s hardly slow, but 500hp is a mere 26hp uplift on the S, and performance only improves fractionally. On a like-for-like basis, with the Sport Chrono pack fitted to both cars, the GTS is a mere 0.3 seconds faster from 0-62mph, achieving that sprint in 4.4 seconds. Flat out, it’ll do 171mph.
It makes a great noise, though, particularly with the sports exhaust engaged, and that animalistic snarl is addictive — especially alongside more muted engines such as the 4.4-litre V8 you find in the BMW X5 M60i xDrive. But it isn’t exactly frugal. Officially, the Cayenne GTS returns just over 20mpg, but you’re probably looking at something in the high teens in the real world. When the S E-Hybrid is more powerful and gets the V8 engine and the ability to travel shorter distances on electric power alone, the GTS doesn't stack up brilliantly on paper, but it feels great on the road.
Ride & Handling
The GTS will live and die by its handling, so Porsche has understandably saved the biggest upgrades for the suspension. The standard Cayenne is already exceptional, but Porsche has added tweaks from the range-topping Turbo GT model that’s no longer available in the UK.
That means the steering knuckles, damper hydraulics and anti-roll bars are all different from those of the standard S, while adaptive air suspension means the whole car sits 10mm lower than standard. Porsche’s Active Suspension Management (PASM) and torque vectoring tech are also fitted to allow for configuration of the car’s ride and handling.
The result of all that is a car that can handle spectacularly, particularly in Sport Plus mode. There, the suspension keeps the big body buttoned down to almost completely eliminate roll, while the steering feels sharp and immediate. It’s a brilliant achievement in something so big and heavy.
Admittedly, when you dial back the driving modes, the body moves a bit more, but the GTS is still fractionally more agile than lowlier Cayenne models, with a more responsive feel. Yet it’s also less comfortable, feeling brittle over short, sharp undulations — not that there were too many of those on our German test route. In the UK, though, it may prove to be a weakness. In Sport Plus mode, it seems to discover imperfections previously only detectable with the aid of a microscope.
As well as fiddling with the suspension, Porsche has also tweaked the brakes, fitting bigger rotors and powerful callipers as standard. But our test car came with the optional ceramic brakes, which felt awful. Stopping power is not the issue — they have that in abundance — but the feel through the pedal is inconsistent at best, and that makes it really difficult to be smooth. In our experience, Porsche’s steel brakes tend to be brilliant, so we’d stick with those unless you’re planning to hit the track regularly. But if you’re buying a Cayenne, you probably aren’t…
Value
The Cayenne GTS comes in at £106,100 in SUV form, and £107,700 in Coupe guise. That makes it about £15,000 more expensive than the S, which has a mere 26 fewer horsepower, but it's around £30,000 cheaper than the flagship Turbo S E-Hybrid. It's a lot of money, but you get all the GTS upgrades, such as the Sport Chrono package and air suspension, as well as the usual Porsche features, including the digital instrument display, climate control and reversing camera. Go for the Coupe and you get a panoramic glass roof as standard, as well as some lightweight equipment options to save a heady maximum of 25kg.
Verdict
For all its brilliance – and there’s plenty on show – the Cayenne GTS still feels like an unnecessary part of the Cayenne range. Even the basic Cayenne is brilliant to drive, so the GTS seems to subtract more appeal through its ride than it adds through its handling prowess. But with no Turbo GT version coming to the UK, this might be the sportiest Cayenne you can get for less than £150,000, and on that basis, it seems more palatable. We’d still have an S with a few options, though.
