Top of its game: The 2022 Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT

The Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT is easily the best in its segment, thanks to its arresting looks, top-notch interior, plush seats, mouth-watering performance, and outstanding handling. While the standard Cayenne comes with a five-seat body layout, the Turbo GT is exclusively available in four-door coupe body style and competes primarily with the Lamborghini Urus, Audi RS Q8, and Mercedes-Benz AMG GLE 63 S.

Let’s find out what makes it a well-rounded luxury-performance SUV.

The Turbo GT carries the same 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 as available in the Cayenne Turbo, but the engineers tweaked it to produce more horsepower and torque. The result is the fastest SUV you can buy in South Africa presently, generating 471kW and 850Nm of torque, which is 67kW and 80Nm more than the Turbo variant.

Engineers made extensive changes to the blowers, intercooler, induction system, and crankshaft to enable it to hit 100 km/h in just 3.3 seconds on the way to a top speed of 300 km/h.

The power goes to all the wheels through an eight-speed automated dual-clutch transmission and transmits a grumbling V8 sound through the bespoke titanium sports exhaust system.

Remember, it is not the most potent Cayenne in the range. That honour goes to the 500kW electrically-assisted Turbo S e-hybrid. However, it is the fastest Cayenne off its toes – 0.6 seconds quicker than the Turbo and 0.5 seconds more agile than the hybrid.

The stopping power comes from ten-piston callipers and 440mm disc up front, and that’s the largest you could ever get in a production passenger vehicle.

The Turbo GT is not just quick; it is also the most dynamic Cayenne with a customised suspension system that takes the SUV 17mm lower to the surface. The modifications to active control systems and passive chassis parts improve (up to 15%) the rigidity of the air suspension system. Helping in manoeuvrability and corning are GT-specific 22-inch wheels with Pirelli P Zero Corsa tires, the rear-axle steering system, and Porsche’s Power Steering Plus setup.

Thanks to all the changes made to the Turbo GT, it has received the honour of the fastest SUV to lap Nürburgring. It lapped the Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit in only 7:39 minutes, thrashing the Audi RS Q8’s 7:42 and Lamborghini Urus’ 7:47 lap time.

Porsche offers four drive modes - Normal, Sport, Sport+, and Individual – that you can select as per your mood. The Normal mode is for everyday driving, while the Sport+ is for extreme performance, allowing the SUV to adopt a tougher, louder, and more responsive manner.

The new 2022 Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT complements your driving pleasure with a posh cabin featuring individual sports seats front and rear, GT-exclusive perforated seat centre panels in Alcantara, along with Grey or Neodyme contrast accents. You can use Porsche’s new-generation PCM infotainment system through a 12.3-inch touch screen, and it supports navigation, Android Auto, and wireless Apple CarPlay. The 549 litres of boot space with rear seats intact is less than the standard Cayenne due to its steeper roofline, but the loading area isdequatee.

At R3.35 million, the 2022 Cayenne Turbo GT is an expensive performance SUV, but there are few competitors in this segment that can beat its sports-car-worthy performance and handling.  (Prices correct at time of publication.)

Read the car reviews on the MotorHappy blog to check out some of the other new SUVs on SA’s roads.

Please note the imagery supplied in this blog was taken off www.porsche.com