As the world edges closer to the death of the internal combustion engine, every performance car company on Earth is doing its damnedest to deliver a nuclear level send-off to a hundred and twenty years of gasoline being king. When it isn’t busy delivering some of the best electric cars in the world, Porsche steadies itself with creating some of the most impressive gas-powered cars in the world. The world is in a horsepower arms race, and this new track-focused Cayenne is running at mutually assured destruction levels.
So what kind of numbers are we talking here? Well, Porsche took the already impressive Cayenne Turbo Coupe and pumped it way up. The four-liter twin-turbo V8 produces 631 horsepower ad 626 lb-ft of torque, up 90 and 59 respectively. That’s enough to push the 5000-ish pound machine from 0-60 in 3.1 seconds, which is totally impressive but wholly unnecessary. If you need an SUV that runs the quarter mile in 11.6 and tops out at 186 miles per hour, you know, because you’re trying to set a lap record on the way to the grocery store or whatever, then the Cayenne Turbo GT is for you.
Don’t worry, some concessions have been made for the sake of weight. We all know that a car which is too heavy can’t truly be fast, so Porsche equipped this monster of a vehicle with a center-exit titanium exhaust which sheds a whopping forty pounds from the car. Damn, it’s practically a Lotus now!
Does the world really need a Cayenne with a Nürburgring lap time quicker than the 911 Turbo from ten years ago? Does anyone need a giant SUV with absolutely zero off-road pretense built specifically to satiate people with hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend and a numbers fetish? Is there anything this vehicle can do that couldn’t be done in a similarly powerful Panamera? I’d wager the answer to all of those is no, but here we are.
The Turbo GT model is equipped with a special suspension setup that is two thirds of an inch lower than the regular Cayenne Turbo Coupe. The new car’s air suspension is 15 percent stiffer, to boot. The Turbo GT carries a retuned Porsche Active Suspension Management system, improved Power Steering Plus, and standard rear axle steering. Active Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control reduces body roll and Porsche Torque Vectoring Plus gives the car more precise corner turn-in. To complement all of this, the Turbo GT features special Pirelli P Zero Corsa (corsa means race) sticky tires wrapped around wider 22-inch wheels, and carbon ceramic brakes as standard. The front brake rotors are more than 17 inches in diameter.
This thing is just wild wrapped in bonkers topped with unholy. The entire planet is on fire right now, but at least you can have fun with three of your friends on a race track in an SUV that shouldn’t really be there until the sun consumes us all.
Visually, you’ll be able to tell a Turbo GT from a regular Cayenne Coupe right away. A GT-specific front fascia includes a deep front lip and huge intakes on each side of the front bumper. There’s also a standard carbon fiber roof, black fender flares, a rear wing with endplates in carbon, and a carbon rear diffuser. Porsche, ostensibly a sports car company, set about building the sports car of luxury SUVs, and this is what it came up with. Inside it’s carbon fiber and Alcantara everywhere. Porsche says “Appropriately, the multifunction sport steering wheel has a yellow 12-o’clock center marker.” You know, like a race car. So you can keep track of where the steering wheel is while you’re racing your Cayenne on a race track.
If this absurd thing sounds like the kind of car you need to own, get your Porsche dealer on the horn right now, because the order books are open. The Turbo GT is expected to reach U.S. customers in early 2022 with an MSRP of $180,800, plus a $1,350 delivery fee.
At least the wheels are cool.