Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT

The super-SUV segment is no place for shrinking violets. Now Porsche dials it up to 11. The Porsche Cayenne Turbo was among the most divisive cars of the early noughties. Yet if it hadn’t survived all of the slings and arrows of public opinion aimed at it since 2002, and gone on to establish such a clearly profitable business model in spite of all the hate, would the Lamborghini Urus, the Bentley Bentayga, the Rolls-Royce Cullinan and now the Ferrari Purosangue have followed? This was the car to first provide concrete evidence that wealthy people were ready to spend big money on seriously fast and desirable luxury SUVs. And now it’s out to battle its way back to the top of the niche that it created. The Cayenne Turbo GT is a new top-of-the-range performance derivative for the Cayenne model line. Available only with the lower-roofed Cayenne Coupé bodystyle, it features as standard every active suspension, steering and braking technology offered optionally on lesser Cayenne models, but also represents a thorough technical reworking of many of those systems, and features a widely upgraded turbocharged V8 engine to boot. It’s a product whose intent is “to fully exploit the dynamic potential” of the Cayenne: a statement that, if delivered on, ought to send shivers to various offices around the European luxury car business. This week, then, we find out just how well Porsche can make a 2.3-tonne luxury SUV handle when fully committing to the idea, and exactly how fast that SUV can be made to accelerate and stop as verified by our satellite timing gear. Get ready for some startling numbers.The Porsche Cayenne Coupe line-up at a glanceThere are now three six-cylinder Cayenne Coupés in Porsche’s model range and four V8s – the Cayenne GTS being the crossover point. Two models out of seven offer plug-in hybrid drive, although they do it at quite different prices and performance levels. There are no secondary trim levels but there are a number of options to splurge on plus Lightweight Sport weight-saving equipment packages.EnginesPowerPrice fRomCoupe335bhp£67,100E-Hybrid Coupe456bhp£75,320S Coupe434bhp£79,340GTS Coupe453bhp£92,150Turbo Coupe543bhp£112,970E-Hybrid Turbo S Coupe671bhp£134,180Turbo GT Coupe632bhp£147,510