Styling
The facelift of the Mk3 Cayenne was subtle work anyway, but this SUV has been multiply distilled from its original, frightful appearance way back in 2002 to something very handsome nowadays, so it's not a bad thing that the designers didn't go to town on the third-gen version for the midlife update. We far prefer the Porsche as the 'regular' SUV than we do when it's rendered as a
Coupe (although we will say the swoopy-roofed Cayenne is one of the best-looking coupe-SUVs of them all, in its defence) and if it's specified in the demure manner of RK73 AVO - sitting, as it does, on what looks like a small set of alloys but which are in fact 20-inch Cayenne Sport items (£704), and then finished in discreet Algarve Blue metallic paint (£2,732) - then there's something of the 'sleeper' about this machine. It eschews the visual excess of either the GTS or the extreme Turbo E-Hybrid with GT Package relations, and we think the Cayenne is all the better for it. Aside from the discreet 'S' monogram after the model name on the bootlid and the lack of an 'e-Hybrid' logo on the SUV's front wings, there's little to give the game away that this plush vehicle is packing a thunderous 4.0-litre V8 under the bonnet.
Interior
Exceptional material quality and the new cowlless, 12.6-inch Curved Display digital instrument cluster - first seen on the
Taycan but now widespread throughout the entire Porsche portfolio - are the hallmarks of the 2025 model year Cayenne's cabin. A spot-on driving position, which gives a commanding view of the road while seating you low relative to the body of the SUV, plus the exquisite Porsche steering wheel and the ergonomic correctness of the cockpit (including separate climate controls down on the transmission tunnel) all add up to make an interior for which we find it very, very hard to pick any fault. The Cayenne has a truly prestigious feel in the passenger compartment that would be the envy of any of its rivals' cabins.
Practicality
Nudging towards five metres long, two metres wide and 1.7 metres tall, the Cayenne Mk3 is no shrinking violet in terms of its exterior form, but it remains resolutely a five-seater SUV only; there's no option to pop a couple of smaller chairs in its boot area. Beyond that, though, this will serve brilliantly as upmarket family transportation. There's a huge amount of leg- and headroom in row two, albeit the centre-rear seat is one of those smaller items - at least Porsche doesn't call it a '4+1' that you have to option up, as in the
Panamera - which also sits astride a hump in the floor of the cabin, so people won't want to occupy the middle of the row for too long. But that bench split-folds in a 40:20:40 ratio for the maximum of interior configurability, while the boot is just two litres shy of fully 700 litres, which is a genuinely massive cargo bay. Throw in some useful stowage compartments and larg door pockets that can take larger bottles of water with ease, and you realise Porsche has put plenty of thought into how the Cayenne's cabin will be used by all occupants, not just the lucky so-and-so seated behind its steering wheel.
Performance
The Cayenne S had been operating with a 440hp, twin-turbo, 2.9-litre V6 in the pre-facelift Mk3, but for the update in 2023 it gained the sumptuous 4.0-litre biturbo V8. Power and torque both rose marginally, to peaks of 474hp and 600Nm, but the performance wasn't markedly improved; in fact, without Sport Chrono fitted the V8 S turns out to be a tenth-of-a-second slower from 0-62mph than the old V6, recording a five-second sprint on the nose (Sport Chrono trims that to 4.7 seconds, if you want). It also doesn't exactly help with economy, because Porsche claims 23mpg officially, but in a gnat's more than 150 miles of testing, we couldn't even match that number - recording a wallet-draining 20.3mpg at an average 29mph; gulp.
However, what printed, on-paper stats can never convey is how much character, or otherwise, an engine swap like this can imbue on its donor. And in the case of the Mk3.5 Cayenne S, the results of the transplant are a resounding success. It's hard to know why anyone would need anything more than what this utterly mesmerising V8 can serve up. Rich in tone from idle to redline, admittedly without ever being as raucous as some of Porsche's wilder confections (understandable, in an SUV like this), and blessed with an effortless muscularity which is easily accessed via the ultra-slick eight-speed Tiptronic 'box and Porsche Traction Management (PTM) all-wheel drive, the Cayenne S offers up belting performance. There's not a moment you'll crave for more forward momentum from it, not a second where you'll question the calibration of either the throttle or brake pedals in the slightest; it's just the perfect drivetrain for a high-end, luxe SUV like this.
Perfect, we said.
Ride & Handling
If you ever want to know why we motoring journalists wax lyrical over Porsche's chassis engineers and you only get one chance to drive a single example of its products to validate that, try the Cayenne S out for size. Sure, you might want to go in the company's most glittering dynamic effort, the
911 GT3, but that's a specialist sports car with a sub-1.5-tonne kerb weight and an outright focus on driving thrills above all else - no offence, but that's Zuffenhausen's bread-and-butter, it has been doing such things for decades.
However, very few other manufacturers (if any) could even get close to making a high-riding, 2.2-tonne SUV get down the road in the limber fashion the Cayenne S does. It is a dream. There's little more we need to say than that the blend of its ride comfort and rolling refinement - both of which are exceptional on this particular car, as it gets Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM) as standard anyway and then the press team has resisted the option to fit this S with a set of 22s on rubber-band tyres - teamed up with its magnificent roadholding is little short of black magic. Body and wheel control are both epic on the Cayenne S, while the steering is just wonderful; full of heft and feel and granularity and deft touch.
You can therefore punch the Cayenne S along your favourite twisting back road at frankly demented speeds and it'll cope with such stress, putting on an awesome display of agility and balance that makes you wonder if the Porsche weighs 1,200 kilos, never mind a tonne more, or alternatively you can simply waft along in the thing, revelling in its immaculate elegance and cathedral-like quiet in the impeccably isolated passenger compartment. Now its smaller Macan brother with petrol engines has gone the way of the warrior, the Cayenne Mk3.5 is the absolute gold standard of outstanding SUV dynamics, it really is.
Value
There's no way of sugar-coating this, the Cayenne S is hardly inexpensive. The starting price of the entire range is £76,000 as it is, but opting for the 474hp V8 lobs £15,500 onto that figure before you've gone anywhere near Porsche's notoriously long and notoriously dear list of options. The likelihood is that even fitting just a few choice extras onto the S will make it a six-figure machine from the outset, but two things in mitigation here: one, Porsches at least come with a decent amount of standard kit these days, the SUV being no exception to such a rule; and two, you'll end up with a Porsche Cayenne S with a V8 engine at the end of all your outlay. Frankly, you won't get anything better anywhere else for less money.
Verdict
The Porsche Cayenne can't be as overtly driver-focused as the smaller Macan, because it has to fulfil other duties that few other cars in the German company's portfolio can cater for. Nevertheless, the Cayenne S V8 is an unmitigated delight to drive and live with, and as it's considerably less cash than some of the more exalted models in the SUV's range, yet still capable of providing a thoroughly rounded and rewarding ownership experience, we think it's absolutely the pick of the current Cayenne family. Indeed, we think it's the current pick of any premium SUV you care to mention, it's
that good.
