Porsche Cayenne GTS Coupe review: a GTS that *isn’t* the sweet spot?

Another GTS Porsche. I know exactly what that means.

Yes, so it’s the new V8… oh, right. Good. That’ll save me some time and typing. Off you go.

More power than a normal one, fewer horsies than a Turbo, a smattering of choice options, dipped in a bucket of Alcantara. Right?

I mean… yeah. In a nutshell. GTS = ‘the sweet spot’ for Porsches. They feel more special than a boggo one, not as hardcore (or hard to get hold of) as the GT cars, and they’re the ones we keep in our ‘saved searches’ when we go truffling through the classifieds. Have 997 GTS coupes or 981 Cayman GTSs depreciated yet? No? Sigh.

So what’s this one?

The new Cayenne GTS, tested in low-rise-tailgate Coupe form. Yours for just under £108,000. Because the standard Cayenne S rightfully has a V8 under the bonnet once more, so does the GTS – long gone are the days when a jimmied-up V6 was thought to suffice. The expensive rumble is back.

The familiar 4.0-litre twin-turbo powerplant churns out a nice, round 500 metric horsepower (493bhp) and a chunky 486lb ft from 2,100rpm to 4,500rpm. As a result you arrive at 62mph – feeling terribly pleased with yourself – in 4.4 seconds. Then you look at the instant fuel economy and make a mental note not to try that too often.

Sign of the times that those numbers aren’t really very mad for a super-SUV in 2024…

In a time of 800bhp Lambo Urus hybrids, 700bhp Aston Martin DBXs and even G-Wagen tower blocks on wheels getting from 0-60 in less than 4.5 seconds, the Cayenne GTS is on the meek, tasteful side of the super-SUV see-saw.

How does this manifest itself in the real world? Well, your passengers might not believe this is the ‘mid-range’ model. It demolishes overtakes and charges along making a raucous V8 rumble (it sounds best at low to middling revs, getting a little hoarse towards the top end as turbo whoosh maxes out).

But if you’ve sampled a Turbo e-Hybrid, it might feel a smidge… reined in. Even freed of the plug-in car’s 305kg weight burden, the GTS is fast, not rampant. It accelerates – it doesn’t hurl itself at a road like it’s been fired from a giant circus cannon. It feels controllable and containable, rather than gasp-out-loud bonkers.

Is that a criticism or not?

Only if you’re in the market for a truly wild SUV. If that’s your cup of tea, the GTS isn’t going to suffice and you’ll need to find the extra forty-odd grand for a Turbo. In the weird world of ultimate 4x4s, I suspect a lot of people will do just that. The target market likes one of these ubertanks to have outrageous (not adequate) oomph.

Is it remarkable to drive in any way?

The Cayenne gets a little forgotten these days in the pantheon of mad high-rise V8 chariots, but it remains a superb all-rounder. After spending a few days in the GTS, I tried the new Range Rover Sport SV and was staggered at the chasm of the Porsche’s superiority.

It sounded more expensive, cornered with more precision, rode with better manners and didn’t feel anything like 120bhp down on the Rangie. I suspect that’s because on paper it’s a quarter of a tonne lighter, and possibly more ‘in the real world.’

The GTS borrows from the shopping list of the top-end Turbo, so it enjoys goodies like racier gearbox calibration, adaptive air suspension with its own specific tuning, and a 10mm ride height drop. When you tell the car to hunker into its lowest setting, it does an alarmingly good impression of a Golf R or Audi RS3 with the trick rear diff, attacking corners like it’s shed a foot in height then leaning hard on the outside rear tyre for traction as it snarls out of the bend.

Like the Turbo e-Hybrid with GT Package we tested earlier in 2024, you actually need to give yourself some miles just to acclimatise to how eerily it resists body roll, and how agile the combination of turn-in grip and rear-wheel steering is. At first, you end up over-driving the Cayenne, lurching around waiting for it to trip over its own door handles and the weight to catch up with it. That… never really happens. Even the standard steel brakes are up to the job, stop after stop.

How much of what makes the GTS a hoot is optional?

Too much. Our test car had ‘Dynamic Chassis Control’ (aka active anti roll bars) which work wonders keeping things upright during a swift direction change. They’re £2,546. The rear-steer? £1,325, which seems mean when it helps shrink the Cayenne not just on the open road, but in a tight spot in town too.

At least the stopwatch spotter’s Sport Chrono Pack and torque vectoring diff are lobbed in on the house. Avoid the carbon lightweight pack for £7k, please. If you want to save some weight, buy an M3 Touring. Or a 911. And tell the kids to shut it when they moan about legroom.

Any other housekeeping?

If you don’t like computers overriding things for you (and who does) then make sure you hold the stubby shift-lever down for long enough to select ‘Manual’. Don’t just get sucked into using the paddles and think you’ve got full control. Sooner or later you’ll tread on the kickdown button and the GTS will try for second or even first, seeming to momentarily forget it owns nearly 500 torques. And you’ll sound like a wally.

Is the GTS good value?

Going back to ‘the weird world of the super-SUV’, it probably is.

Thanks to the ‘SportDesign’ bumpers it looks the same as a Turbo, but costs £40k less. It’s as fast as a G63 or its second cousin – the Bentley Bentayga S –  both of which are massively more expensive at around £190k. As we’ve discussed, it easily swats away the new ultimate Range Rover Sport (£70k pricier).

So, you might still want a sillier, more extrovert super-SUV. The devil on your shoulder might insist you upgrade, as it niggles away at you that this is by no means as extreme a Cayenne as Porsche can build. You can’t make rational arguments for irrational cars, after all.

Us? We’d save £10k, and make do with the Cayenne S. Same hearty V8 noise, a bit of headroom for options, and all the comfy, versatile, performance SUV you’d ever need. The sweet spot. Probably. Right?