2023 Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT review

The first time I ever drove this road, there was no traffic coming the other way and it was fantastic. Apex right across the road, skim your right-hand guard up against the Armco and the car hunkers into the camber. Feel everything unweight as you launch across the crown of the road and then compress, tyres keying into bitumen, fictitious forces feeling very real.

That was Targa High Country which is, for the time being at least, a thing of the past; an event stricken from the calendar courtesy of a run of horrors at its sister event across the Bass Strait.

Today we’re back on the road that comprises nearly 40 percent of Targa High Country’s stages – the Mansfield-Whitfield Road. Even leaving Targa aside, it’s a road that we love. MOTOR used to run the road stages of Performance Car of the Year on this stretch and there’s a private rally facility tucked away in the trees halfway along its length.

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The Cayenne Turbo GT is Zuffenhausen throwing all it knows at a pure internal combustion-engined super-SUV

The vehicle we’ve brought to sample it today at first seems more likely to steamroller its relief into submission, but the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT Coupe is Zuffenhausen throwing all it knows at a pure internal combustion-engined super-SUV, so you suspect it may have a trick or two up its sleeve.

On the face of it, many feel these sort of cars are patently idiotic. We all know that a powerful wagon is deemed a smarter thing for most people most of the time, just in case you’ve already started penning the hate mail. We like to think that the sort of person who can happily drop $336,100 on a Turbo GT coupe could probably afford a stable of high-end cars.

Maybe they can but perhaps a more salient question is whether they’d want to. What if they just wanted one car that could do everything? A one-size-fits-all solution that’d be happy noodling about town, which could effortlessly undertake long freeway journeys, which could entertain on a back road and which could even tackle a gnarled dirt road without so much as a care in the world?

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Fire and forget. Job done. That’s the brief of the fastest Cayenne ever.

Some notion of its frankly freakish capability comes from its Nürburgring lap time of 7min 38.9 seconds. You may well question the value of flogging a 2220kg lump around the Nordschleife, but you can’t carp about the result. Anything that can lap faster than a Bugatti Veyron, a Porsche 997.2 GT3, a Mercedes SLS AMG or a Ferrari 430 Scuderia and still seat four in comfort merits respect.

Porsche knows that the death knell is sounding for pure – and purely profligate – combustion-engined vehicles such as the Cayenne Turbo GT and has thrown everything at it in a final tribute to suck, squeeze, bang and blow. You’re probably across the broad-brush basics already.

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The familiar 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 delivers 471kW and 850Nm which makes this the penultimate Cayenne in terms of sheer outputs behind the 270kg heavier 500kW/900Nm Turbo S-E Hybrid Coupe. Drive goes to all four Pirelli P Zero Corsas via an eight-speed automatic gearbox, 100km/h comes and goes in 3.3 seconds.

It feels like a Golf R wicked up to 11. That’s not to say there’s no drama or involvement

With launch control engaged on a VHT-prepped dragstrip, you might dip into the high twos. It’s that fast. On the road, the Cayenne doesn’t feel quite as concussive, at least in the first few metres from the line. Plant the throttle without launch control engaged and power deployment in first is a little soft, with some turbo lag evident below 2500rpm.

Then the software realises how much grip is available and all hell breaks loose. There’s nothing in the way of wheel scrabble or torque steer. It just squats and goes. The standing quarter disappears in a scant 11.4 seconds which is Nissan GT-R quick.

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That all-wheel drive wagon you were thinking about instead? Those beacons of engineering rectitude such as an Audi RS6 or a BMW M3 Touring would be receding specks in the rear view.

The Cayenne Turbo GT must have an Achilles heel and that’s why we’ve brought it to this demanding road. It was en route to the Mansfield-Whitfield road that it displayed on of its caveats however. The day had dawned grey, cold and wet and it probably won’t surprise you to learn that a P Zero Corsa isn’t at its happiest in these conditions.

What I wasn’t quite ready for was how catastrophic the understeer would be when you got onto the throttle on any sort of corner. On wet roundabouts, any sniff of the right-hand pedal sends the nose veering wide quite alarmingly.

Those that can afford to drop $362K on one of these would be wise to budget for a more versatile set of boots to wear in winter.

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I meet photographer Brook in Mansfield, hosing the gunk off the 22-inch Satin Neodyme wheels as he waits to be served some sort of giant baloney hoagie. A colleague had dismissively referred to the wheel colour as rose gold earlier, but these deutan eyes can’t see any pink in the mix.

So big are the eye-catching alloys when contrasted with the low-key Arctic Grey body paint that it gives the effect of a smaller Macan-sized body perched atop the giant hoops.

Cleaning duties done, we set out on the road which isn’t hard to find, heading north from the last roundabout at the top of Mansfield high street. At first the C521 is a gentle meander through paddocks and new builds. The Targa Tassie organisers designated this initial limber-up a transit stage.

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The first of the outbound competitive stages, Special Stage 4 – Barwite, begins just as innocently, with one gentle left-hander in the first kilometre before the road develops some teeth.

Over a bite to eat in Whitfield, it’s clear quite what a massive kitchen sink Porsche has thrown at this vehicle

The relief falls away to your left to a choked creek bed while on the right, gum trees cling to chossy rock walls. Nudge the Cayenne’s manettino dial into Sport Plus and the vehicle hunkers lower on its suspension. Crack a window and it’s clear that as dramatic as the acoustics are in the cabin, they’re even better outside. This is no pure-tone V8 wail. It’s wet and dirty, gutsy and earthy. It sounds utterly and gloriously reprehensible.

Truth is, the emissions of this 471kW leviathan are no worse than a Prado V6 or a Nissan 370Z. It seems that even one-fingered salutes are somewhat mannered these days.

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Much of the Cayenne Turbo GT’s cornering ability comes courtesy of those huge tyres. Developed specially for this model, they sit on rims an inch wider than the standard Cayenne Turbo. Measuring 285/35 ZR22 up front and 215/30 ZR22 at the rear, they’re assisted by a geo tweak of 0.45 degrees more negative camber and an actively steering rear axle.

The deletion of the Cayenne Turbo Coupe’s glass roof in favour of a carbonfibre panel saves 22kg and lowers the centre of gravity as does a ride height drop of 17mm.

The air suspension is 10 percent firmer in Normal mode than the Cayenne Turbo and 15 percent beefier in Sport Plus, while uprated front dampers improve turn-in behaviour and roll stability in concert with PDCC active anti-roll bars. Then there’s the updated Porsche Torque Vectoring Plus (PTV Plus) which tidies turn-in behaviour with targeted brake interventions.

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The big benefit here is how early you’re then able to get on the gas and take advantage of the fully variable differential lock.

The effect is uncanny. Unleashing that much torque mid-corner in a vehicle this big would normally lift the nose, overwhelm the front contact patch’s tenuous grasp on the bitumen and then you’d be left either managing understeer or feeling the throttle pedal neutered by the vehicle’s stability control. In other words exactly what we experienced earlier in the day on wet roads.

Now that the road is warm and dry, the Cayenne just accelerates cleanly through the corner. It feels like a Golf R with everything wicked up to 11. That’s not to say there’s no drama or involvement. Get really enthusiastic and it’ll smear all four wheels at the limit, or you can play around with the weight balance by lifting the throttle to get it to tuck its nose on the way in. There’s definitely a bit of Weissach in these genes.

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The Barwite stage is 7.4km of fun, but the real treat resides a few kilometres further up the road. Stage 5, Tolmie, extends for 16.2km and includes the high point of the road at 930m above sea level. The views across to the huge south wall of Mount Feathertop often threaten your attention on the road ahead and today the far peaks are still snow-dusted, with Mount Buller jutting above the stringybarks to your right and countless white domes marking the eastern horizon.

This road undulates at first, before cresting a rise and then it’s downhill all the way. The most recognisable section is a set of switchbacks that run beneath a clearcut marked by overhead power lines.

The final stage as you descend is the 7.15km blast down to Whitfield, which features possibly the greatest corner along the whole road; a vast, wide left-hander that’s open to the valley floor, angling around a red rock cirque. You could almost be in Nevada rather than Victoria.

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Photography requires a few passes here, and the road is broad enough and sufficiently well-sighted to try different lines. The brakes are mighty, as you’d hope on something that can build such boggling levels of kinetic energy so quickly.

The carbon ceramic discs are 440mm up front clamped by ten – ten! – piston calipers, with 410mm discs at the back serviced by four-pots. Yes, the rear brake discs on the Cayenne Turbo GT really are 20mm bigger than the front brakes on a Lamborghini Huracán STO.

Over a bite to eat in Whitfield, it’s clear quite what a massive kitchen sink Porsche has thrown at this vehicle. Engine, suspension, brakes, steering, transmission, aero, lightweighting, cooling, basically anything that can be optimised within reason has been.

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It would have been so easy to wick the turbochargers up a little, fit some flashy dress up and rebadge accordingly. Indeed, many will expect that this is exactly what Zuffenhausen has done to the Turbo GT, but that does it a vast disservice.

There is an element of engineering dogma versus physics inherent in this vehicle. We know that a lower-slung wagon would undoubtedly be a wieldier, lighter thing. We also know Porsche has been known to turn unpromising-looking vehicle layouts into something magical.

But the Cayenne Turbo GT works so beautifully, it’s hard to be resentful. Indeed, hating on the Turbo GT for being an SUV and not a wagon is about as churlish as pouring scorn on a GT3 RS because it’s more porcine and profligate than a single-seat race car.

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Having earlier switched it into off-road mode and blasted down a rutted red dirt track on raised suspension, the sheer bandwidth of this Porsche’s abilities makes it an unexpectedly sweet fit for Australian conditions. An Audi RS6 would have divested itself of most of its chin somewhere along that track, shaken its occupants to smithereens and still been no more entertaining on the drive back up the hill.

Super SUVs are often perceived as symbols of unnecessary excess. Most are solely bought as baubles, a badge of exclusivity in the purest sense. The Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT Coupe is different.

A well-specified Cayenne GTS Coupe is a great choice for $140k less but you’ll choose the Turbo GT not because you can, but because Porsche will never build a better purely petrol-powered SUV. This is the endstop. And what a way to go out.

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Uprate everything

That was the tweak that was

It would have been so easy for Porsche just to jack the boost up a bit and publish a sexy headline power figure. Unfortunately, the engineers got a bit carried away.

To that end, the Cayenne Turbo GT’s engine does indeed have more boost, to the tune of a minuscule 0.1 bar, but it also features uprated timing chain drive, crankshaft, conrods, pistons, and torsional vibration dampers. The injectors flow 10 percent faster, gearshifts have been sharpened and there’s additional cooling for the gearbox transfer case.

Although the engine is built in Zuffenshausen, the design work comes courtesy of Weissach.

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Over and out?

Will tarmac rallying return?

The answer to that question is ‘it depends who you ask’. There are two commissioning bodies overseeing tarmac rallying. Motorsport Australia has, for the time being, suspended the Targa events.

The Australian Auto-sport Alliance administers events like the Great Tarmac Rally, the Mt Baw Baw Sprint and the Snowy River Sprint. These events are still very much alive. Sadly not on the Mansfield-Whitfield Road, however.