Porsche Cayenne GT ｜ A Super Car SUV？

The Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT. This is the most expensive Porsche Cayenne currently sold, and it is also the fastest. In fact, this is the fastest SUV in the world around the Nurburgring. With that in mind, in this video we're going to be walking you through how Porsche has used every electromechanical system in the world to turn this Cayenne into a track-capable vehicle, and then take it for a drive around Autobahn Country Club, where we're going to explore its dynamic limits at a racetrack. So with that, please enjoy. Before we head into the shop and put this Turbo GT up on the rack, let's talk about what Porsche did to the Cayenne to turn it into this vehicle from an exterior and interior perspective. Starting with the exterior, Porsche picked their coupe body style, which is their lightest weight and sportiest look for the Cayenne, albeit it's not that light at 5,000 pounds. And because of the coupe roofline, you have less trunk space and rear headroom for your rear passengers. This car also only comes with four seats. When looking at the front, you'll notice a different front fascia with larger air inlets, so the engine can breathe a little better and the coolers can get a little extra air. But what you'll really notice, other than the carbon roof, is how different the rear looks. You have a carbon rear diffuser, a center exit titanium exhaust, and dual spoilers on the rear of this vehicle, a fixed carbon spoiler at the roofline, and a electromechanical spoiler that activates based upon drive mode, speed, and what you're doing with the infotainment. From an interior perspective, this is pretty standard high-spec Cayenne coupe, which means in this vehicle's case, everything's covered in leather and Alcantara. You can option this car up to the hilt. What really makes this a little different than other Cayenne coupes is Turbo GT badging, some satin neodyne accents like on the steering wheel and the center gauge cluster, and really, that's it. But with all that out of the way, let's head in the shop and put this thing up on the lift. Mark, I think our HVAC system needs its prostate checked because you can hear that slow dribble back there into the bucket. It's dribbling and somebody's mowing outside, but that's okay, Jack, because we're under the most powerful Porsche V8 ever. Well, in a street car, or I'm sorry, CUV SUV. This is the Cayenne Turbo GT. This is, as the time of this video, the fastest SUV ever to go around the ring. So basically, Porsche took something that was never supposed to be all that capable on a racetrack or all that involving to drive from a feedback perspective. They turned it into a GT product, the hardest core of the Porsche products, like GT3 SUV. So they took the Cayenne Coupe, which we talked about in one of our prior videos, which is the lightest weight version of the Cayenne. And let me tell you, it's not lightweight. It's almost 5,000 pounds. And they recalibrated all the various subsystems to make this capable. Again, it's counterintuitive. So the Cayenne, when you fully load one of these things, has their 4D suspension setup. So they have air shocks, adaptive dampers. They have PDCC, which is active sway bars, the rear diff in the back, and rear steer. They basically worked with every electric mechanical system to get this to work. And they have one of the most capable high-performance brake packages co-developed with Brembo, these carbon ceramics. The only thing it's missing, and it's just because of the platform, as you told me, is it doesn't have center locking wheels, which is what I would need, honestly, for a quick tire change. I think these are like 444, something. They're massive. This whole thing is ridiculous. I mean, honestly, I struggle. This is one of the Porsche products I struggle with, because I look at the price tag, and you're an engineer, right? You want to develop something high-performance. You don't start with this. So that's what I'm thinking. They needed a multi-MPV for their track and for screwing around on their own. This is one of those things they're like, can we do this? Not should we do this, but can we do this? And they did it. They did it. I'll be really curious to see how it drives out on track. But before we get into that, what else do we need to know under here? So they recalibrated all of those systems. So when compared to a Cayenne Turbo S, it has 17 millimeters reduction in ride height. It is 15% stiffer. Their power steering was recalibrated. Their adaptive sway bars were recalibrated for less sway. They wanted the car to feel a little tighter. Yeah, better body control, all the things. The rear diff was recalibrated. And then they added wider wheels in the front. They're about an inch wider than the standard turbo wheels. So you have 285 front tires on a real summer tire, and they added about half a degree of negative camber to the front of the vehicle to get it to turn in. So again, they're taking something that should not work on the track and turn it into something track capable. This is basically maxing out what MLB Evo, which is the platform this is on. This is the same platform that the Urus and the Bentayga, the Q8, the Q7, every big Audi group product is in, and they're just trying to make this the most capable thing in the world. Runs a 738 around the ring, which as a reference point, yes, tire technology's changed and everything, but it's fast as an LFA. I haven't been under an engine bay in quite a while since we've been doing this, and this is a beast. And there's so much that they did to this. It's not just shove a V8 and reflash it, give it more boost. They've done a lot, Jack, so let's get started. They've actually changed the entire crank drive of this engine. So the connecting rods, the chain itself, the individual components are all new to deal with. The added output of this motor makes 631 horsepower, 626 foot-pounds of torque, means this thing will do 0 to 60 in 3.1 seconds. But because again, this is track capable, and really hopefully if you buy one of these things, you're not just taking it to the grocery store. You will terrorize a Miata or something on the racetrack. That's why I said, if you're going out and you're doing racing or track stuff, and you're not just buying this to go to Arby's and all that other crap, I could see the potential of like, hey, let's go learn a track, hop in, you can go around and fly in flat out like you were in a sports car. That's the one thing that is cool about it. It's a counterintuitive product. They also radically changed the cooling. Two bigger charge coolers in the front. They added two auxiliary coolers, and then a cooler to the transfer case for the all-wheel drive system in this vehicle, so it should hold up to temps. Then here's their big showpiece, which admittedly, some of it's marketing, but a lot of it is real. They cat-back backwards, so the middle of the exhaust section back is now titanium. It's center exit, so no, you can't tow with this thing anymore, but it is a titanium exhaust system that shaves like 50 pounds off of it, and it gives it that more GT sound signature according to them. It really does sound pretty cool. And each bank or the exhaust manifolds are separate from each other. There's no merger with the exhaust, so it is straight back all the way on each side, which also increases air flow out. The fuel injection system is also different. Mark, walk me through that. Yeah, so they've updated it to the latest version of their Bosch fuel injection, the next generation, so the fuel injectors themselves are smaller. They're capable of a higher flow. The nozzle size is greatly reduced, so they have more control over the fuel spray. Better for emissions, better for power, and the pressure that the fuel rail can hold, including the end caps, is much higher. So, you know, all the latest electronics, fuel system has been updated here to accommodate, of course, the power. And a lot of the extra power comes from, of course, the turbochargers. The compressor wheel's bigger, now puts out about 23 and change psi of boost. The last thing to talk about, 8-speed automatic. It's a ZF unit. It's what you find in a regular Cayenne. However, it's been tuned and recalibrated and modified. Everything in here has been recalibrated. Their existing electromechanical systems have enough flexibility, which we talk about on other Porsches. Get the base stuff working right, and then all you have to deal with is recalibration and software to make the minor modifications. You're changing some internals. Right. With the exception of the engine, they had to, you know, change everything. Yeah, so with that, Mark, let's take this out to Autobahn Country Club. We're going to drive this thing on track where this thing was designed to be had. Oh, Jack, what did you do? We're out here at Autobahn Country Club on South Circuit in a Cayenne Turbo GT. Look, I'm not supposed to like this car. I'm supposed to think it's stupid. I'm supposed to think it doesn't drive well because it's an SUV. But you tell me out here with a straight face that this thing isn't amazing. I just got done blowing the doors off a GT350R in this thing. I think that's the most, that's the funniest part for me is just. You still have to deal with the fact that you can't, you know, you can't break the physics down of moving around 5,000 pounds. You know, this is heavy. So when you go out here, you're like, oh my God, this is like a 911. And then you're like, you still have to stop. You still have to turn. It doesn't deal with the weight transitions like a traditional sports car, but with a rear wheel steer. Oh my God, the rear wheel steer is amazing, dude. Just unbelievable how much it gets you through the corners. I told you when I was out here that the turn in was phenomenal for an SUV. I've never felt anything like this out here. Well, I mean, they got the rear like totally maxed out where you're just like the car, like you don't even have to turn the wheel. The whole back end is moving with you and it almost makes it feel like unstable, but it's part of the magic. All these electromechanical systems is how you move this 5,000 pounds around. And I think this is how all these big beastly SUVs and touring car things or GT cars have got so ridiculously fast outside of being fast in a straight line. This thing is amazing, dude. I can't believe they did this. I mean, it's just totally pointless. Look out here. I'm going to be honest. It's better to drive than a lot of dedicated sports cars we've had on this channel. It's faster than something like a Supra. It's way better to drive than a base C8. And that's, no, I mean, this thing is so fast, dude. I mean, it's ridiculous. I mean, and the good thing is, is you kind of feel something. That's what I kind of complained about with like the BMW piles. Well, not piles, but you know, like the X5M and some of those SUVs, like it's going hyper speed, but you don't feel like you're doing anything. This actually has some driver engagement to it and feel like you're actually steering it. The back is moving around a bit. I mean, it's just, it's amazing. And when you're out on the street, I drove it two hours to get here. It only rides 10% stiffer than the best riding SUV in the world, which is a Cayenne, which is, you know, that's not, oh my God, dude. It's just, that's the only negative. If I had to have one, you still have to stop this thing. And at 5,000 pounds, man, it's crazy to, to realize you can't break as deep with this because, you know, you're dealing with trying to stop, which is, you know, that's why this isn't as nimble as a sports car, but it does like everything else. Amazing. How's the engine and gearbox? I was kind of surprised that if, you know, they didn't put a PDK in here, but I mean, they got the torque converter tuned so perfectly that most people would never notice that this isn't like a dual clutch. It really is good. And the brakes, these things are massive. No fade. You're going to kill the tires way before you kill these. This could use stickier tires, honestly, if you wanted to get more braking performance out of it, but I mean, I just like, why? So with that, before you make me violently ill, let's get into the final thoughts. Final thoughts on the Cayenne Turbo GT. And I realize I'm one of the few people on the planet that will have the opportunity to drive this, let alone beat the ---- out of it on the track. So we know that this is a coupe SUV turned sports car supercar thing. It doesn't make a lot of sense if you're looking at it from the black and white factor of make or engineering a sports car to be fast because you're taking a huge lump and there's a ton of weight to manage at 5,000 pounds. So really to me, this was a technical engineering exercise to see how far they can push their electromechanical systems to manage the weight. And on the surface, it is amazing. It's very fast in a straight line. It gets around a track like you wouldn't believe. So there's got to be some fine print to it. Well, that is, yes, there are some limitations, namely in cooling. When I took this out for a 10 minute session, I was able to get the trans temperature up to a point where it I also noticed in a straight line where this car started or SUV started being just belligerently fast to pull and pull, you could feel the ECU or the computer tuning dialing back the power. The more heat you got into it, this definitely does not have the cooling power of something like a true GT car like the GT3 or the GT4 RS. There are limitations of how far and for how long you can push this. And like I said, I'm probably one of the few people who will ever get it to that point on the street. You will never reach that threshold on the track. You will 100 percent. So I will say that everything else about this is typical Porsche stuff that we rave about. Great fit and finish, great build quality, unbelievable ride on the street. It is super comfortable and just it feels like a sports car. It really does, which is mind blowing given what this package is. And I'm going to leave it at that. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next video.