Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT 2024 Review

If you have to ask (etc, etc…) Sitting atop the 2024 Porsche Cayenne Coupe totem pole, the Turbo GT asks for $364,700 plus on-road costs, almost double the Cayenne S Coupe – now also twin-turbo V8 – and almost $70,000 upstream of the (more powerful) Cayenne Turbo E-Hybrid Coupe.

It puts the Turbo GT into some rarified air among some seriously exotic competition, such as the Aston Martin DBX707 (from $428,400), Bentley Bentayga V8 (from $378,600) and Lamborghini Urus S (from $409,744), not to mention the equally powerful BMW XM Label Red (from $344,200) and Range Rover Sport P635 SV (from $360,800).

Some of our recent Porsche test cars have come with options lists longer than the queue for Taylor Swift tickets, but thankfully the quantity of extras on the 2024 Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT is very small.

As standard you receive giant 22-inch wheels, carbon-ceramic brakes the size of the moon (441mm discs and 10-piston callipers at the front; 410mm discs and four-piston callipers at the rear, if you must know), bigger spoilers front and rear and smatterings of carbon around the exterior, including the roof!

Optional equipment on lesser Cayennes is also included standard such as tinted Matrix LED headlights, quad-zone climate control, ambient lighting, heated seats in the front and rear, swathes of Race-Tex (Porsche’s Alcantara) and carbon on the inside, soft-close doors and a Bose surround-sound stereo (no-cost option).

Extras on our test car were limited to an air-quality system ($890), Deep Sea Blue accent package ($1140), passenger display ($2860), Porsche logo LED courtesy lights ($600) and body-colour painted key ($780).

A number of body colours are standard, but your biggest potential spend at this end of the market is Porsche’s paint-to-sample program at $20,340.

Porsche offers a three-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty as standard but this can be extended for extra cost and servicing will cost around $10,000 over the first five years.

There is no official safety rating for the 2024 Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT but it does come loaded with all the gear you’d expect.

There are airbags galore for the front and rear passengers – though not the increasingly common front centre airbag – as well as autonomous emergency braking (AEB), adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, blind spot monitoring and a 360-degree view camera with parking assist.

In the centre of the 2024 Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT’s dash is a giant 12.3-inch widescreen display with touch, gesture and voice control, wireless smartphone mirroring, digital radio, connected navigation with traffic updates and audio and video streaming now, too.

It’s a slick unit, high-resolution and responsive, easy to navigate with a customisable home screen and it’s flanked by an identical (optional) screen in front of the passenger.

The latter has most of the same functions as the central screen, but possibly its greatest attraction is its ability to show the passenger streaming video while keeping the screen black from the driver’s viewpoint.

In front of the driver is a curved 12.65-inch digital display lifted from the Taycan that is likewise easily adjusted to display any information required and offers multiple views, while above this in the windscreen is a head-up display.

The My Porsche app allows you to control certain vehicle functions remotely via your smartphone (locking, air-conditioning), check the vehicle’s status, transmit vehicle information to Porsche assistance in the event of a breakdown, sync your calendar and send navigation instructions to the car from your phone.

On the face of it, the 2024 Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT has a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 just like the S (and, in hybrid form, the Turbo) models, but this is a very different proposition.

The Turbo GT’s unit has had a radical overhaul, with mono-scroll turbochargers (rather than twin-scroll in the S) providing 23psi of boost pressure for eye-popping outputs of 485kW and 850Nm.

This is enough to make light work (pardon the pun) of the Turbo GT’s 2245kg mass and catapult it to 100km/h in just 3.3sec and on to a crazy top speed of 305km/h.

Fuel efficiency and the 2024 Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT aren’t two phrases that sit comfortably together.

The claimed combined-cycle figure of 14.1L/100km gives some hint as to the damage, but under enthusiastic use you can expect to easily double that.

Nevertheless, on a very light cruise it might dip into single digits and the 90-litre tank does at least provide a decent touring range.

There are two sides to this equation. Well, three actually, so let’s deal with each in turn, starting with day-to-day driving.

For all its absurd power and performance (and the badge on the back), the 2024 Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT doesn’t sacrifice everyday comfort to the same extent as the GT-series 911s.

It is, in effect, a Cayenne S Coupe.

Being compared to a vehicle half its price might not sound like a compliment, but I mention it to illustrate that there isn’t a price to pay for the Turbo GT’s focus. There is a firmness to the ride as you might expect but it’s still perfectly acceptable, the auto gives the odd shunt but the constant growl of the V8 is a welcome accompaniment.

At some point, whether joining a freeway or perhaps getting head of traffic away from the lights, you’ll floor the accelerator. Hold on when you do.

The first time I did so the road was slightly damp and the Turbo GT wheelspun furiously through first and second, the traction control fighting a losing battle.

The torque hit you get when the turbos wake up – it doesn’t take long – is phenomenal and you’d best back off quickly if you don’t want to attract unwanted attention. It makes a vicious sound, too, with the exhaust set to Sport.

Presumably, at some point you’ll want to head for the hills and explore more of the Cayenne Turbo GT’s performance envelope. There’s a wonderful road in Victoria’s Gippsland region (one of many) that has almost every sort of road surface and corner you could imagine, but it initially starts tight, twisty and bumpy which, in addition to the wet conditions, has the Turbo GT feeling decidedly uncomfortable.

It’s just too much. The front tyres don’t want to bite, the power overwhelms even all-wheel drive traction, it feels heavy and unwieldy. Perhaps it’s unreasonable to expect a car this size to work on a road like this, but it shows that these monsters have their limitations.

In this environment, any half-decent hot hatch would show this 485kW, $400,000 mega-machine a clean pair of heels with little trouble.

As the road opens up and dries, the Turbo GT begins to flex its extraordinary muscles. The power reserves are inexhaustible, but it’s the dynamic control that is the difference here.

Almost every SUV gets sooky when you really start to push it, but the Turbo GT never wilts. Or even frays at the edges.

Possibly the only peer in terms of sheer capability is the Lamborghini Urus Performante, though others like the Aston DBX707 and Ferrari Purosangue have their own character as compensation.

It’s a physics-defying, mind-altering experience.

The interior of the latest Porsche Cayenne is a lovely place to be and the 2024 Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT is no exception, though it has its own flavour, covered as it is in the suede-like Race-Tex.

In combination with the flashes of carbon there are subtle reminders that you haven’t just bought a ‘normal’ Cayenne Coupe and, as mentioned, the rest of the interior is swathed in leather.

As mentioned in other reviews, one of the best features of the new Cayenne is the fact it’s retained plenty of physical controls for adjustments made on every drive: volume, fan, temperature, heated/cooled seats, etc.

One unusual feature of the Turbo GT is its four-seat orientation, the rear-centre pew converted into a storage area. It did, however, prove handy when on the first full-throttle application my phone flew out of the centre console and landed neatly in the storage tray in the back, so perhaps that’s what it is for.

There’s ample room in the rear, the coupe roofline only impacting on ease of entry very slightly and the 576-litre boot is a good size, too. On paper, much smaller than the Cayenne wagon, but most of that reduction is above the parcel shelf (measured to the roof), which is infrequently used.

There’s no rational reason to buy a 2024 Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT. Now that it’s returned to V8 power, a well-specced Cayenne S Coupe offers 95 per cent of the experience (possibly more) for much, much less money – same noise, same steering, same lovely interior, etc.

Further up the tree, the Cayenne Turbo E-Hybrid has equally organ-squishing acceleration with the added benefit of a decent EV-only range for when you’d rather whisper than shout. It is, again, a lot less money.

But such rationale has no place here. I suspect Porsche will sell every Cayenne Turbo GT it can land here because there are buyers who want the wildest and most expensive (of anything) and, in fairness, if a Turbo GT is what they want I can’t think of a single reason to dissuade them from this.

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