| Week at the Wheel | Porsche Cayenne Turbo |
Key Facts
Model tested: Porsche Cayenne Turbo
Pricing: £87,653 (£100,659 as tested)
Engine: 4.8-litre twin turbocharged V8 petrol
Transmission: eight-speed automatic, four-wheel drive
Body style: five-door SUV
Rivals: BMW X5 M, Mercedes-Benz ML63 AMG, Range Rover Sport
CO2 emissions: 270g/km
Combined economy: 24.6mpg
Top speed: 173mph
0-62mph: 4.7 seconds
Power: 500hp at 6,000rpm
Torque: 700Nm at 2,250- to 4,500rpm
Inside & Out:
Porsche's Cayenne will always have critics of its styling, but it sells in big numbers so it can't all be bad. Indeed, with this second generation model Porsche's softening of its lines and finessing of its familial look do it big favours. The larger intakes up front do give the Turbo a greater air of menace over its lesser relations, as do the massive alloy wheels and deeper bumpers. If you're left in any doubt then the Turbo badging briskly disappearing ahead of you will make sure you know this it the range-topping Cayenne.
If you're the one pressing the big pedal on the right then you're surrounded in Porsche finery. The materials are a big step up from the old Cayenne, while the Panamera-aping cockpit is nicely finished and sensibly laid out. The satnav is still a bit rubbish, but there's nothing much else wrong with the driving environment.
Ride & Handling:
Porsche's ability to engineer the impossible doesn't just stop at arse-engined sports cars, extending too to vast SUVs with giant-killing potential. This is an SUV you really could drive on a track without fear of embarrassment, the Cayenne Turbo's balance extraordinary, its response exceptional and control virtually incomprehensible. Driven here with optional Porsche Torque Vectoring and Dynamic Chassis Control it's able to offer sports car precision when demanded, yet ride with saloon car comfort on the road. You'll have to press a few buttons to achieve all this, but whether you're lapping Silverstone or the Waitrose car park for a space big enough to park it in, the Cayenne Turbo takes everything in its stride.
Engine & Transmission:
That chassis works well in standard guise with the regular engines in the Cayenne range, so when it's being pummelled down the road by a 4.8-litre V8 boosted by twin-turbos to give 500hp and 700Nm of torque speed comes easily. It's staggeringly rapid; 62mph arrives from standstill in just 4.7 seconds and it'll keep accelerating all the way up to 173mph. It's the engine's flexibility that makes it so damned quick. Just as the suspension defies what you'd think is possible in a high, heavy SUV, so too does the engine's ability to shrug off mass and hurl the Cayenne Turbo forwards with such impunity - you'd never guess it weighs over two tonnes. Well over.
Standard stop-start does go some way to attempting to keep the fuel bills sensible - as does eight gears in the slick automatic transmission - but there's only so much you can do to quell the drinking habit of that mighty powerplant. Officially it'll return 24.6mpg, but the chances of you ever achieving that are as slim as the Cayenne Turbo is fast...
Equipment, Economy & Value for Money:
Given it's already lofty near-£90,000 list price it's a little bit stingy of Porsche to ask for more money for an iPod connection and a three-spoke steering wheel with paddle-shifters. What's also a bit cheeky - given the Turbo's monumental performance - is leaving that Dynamic Chassis Control and Porsche Torque Vectoring on the options list. Go for ceramic brakes and you'll need a further £6,000. At this point in the line-up costly extras are perhaps inevitable, though whether the Turbo as specified here is really worth the cost of a V8 S and a Cayenne Diesel together is debateable. But as we said at the start, there's no rationalising this most outlandish of performance cars.
