Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT a supercar disguised as an SUV

Until this week, it’s been a year in which I have survived on testing a strange mix consisting of turbodiesel double cab bakkies and electric cars.

It was, therefore, almost refreshing to test a petrol guzzling, power and torque spewing, unapologetic high-performance machine in the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT.

Never in a million years would you need your family mover to produce 471 kW of power and 850 Nm of torque. But if you want the bragging rights that come with driving the world’s fastest SUV, then you are going to need this get up and go to move 2.25-ton around like a sports car.

This is not some fluffy marketing claim. The Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT was hustled around the 20.832 km of the legendary Nürburgring Nordschleife in a record time of 7:28.925 minutes in the hands of Lars Kern.

This is a time that is better than many a supercar, GT car, sedan, and any hot hatch on planet earth. It’s also quicker than its Audi RS Q8 sibling, Mercedes-AMG’s GLC 63 and Alfa Romeo’s Stelvio Quadrifoglio, that made up the original podium.

So, I guess then I don’t have to tell you that the handling of the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT is in a class of its own.

ALSO READ: WATCH: BMW X5 M Competition makes AMG brigade eat dust

Compared to the Cayenne Turbo Coupe, the Turbo GT is 17 mm lower and 15% firmer, while all the passive chassis components and active control systems have been re-engineered and optimised for handling and performance.

New 22-inch Pirelli P Zero Corsa performance tyres, specially developed for the Turbo GT, and the standard-fit Porsche Ceramic Composite Brake (PCCB) system ensure that the power gets to the tar and remains on the tar when it comes to slowing down.

But our version of the Nürburgring is the long straight test track at Gerotek just outside of Pretoria. And our test was to find if the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT could wrestle the 0 to 100 km/h title away from BMW’s 460kW/650Nm X5 M Competition.

The BMW clocked in with a 3.82 second time to 100 km/h, a 14.12 second 200 km/h run, a 234 km/h 1km speed and a top speed of 290 km/h.

I can tell you that for the first time in my decades of testing cars, I have now run a car that returned the exact same 0 to 100 km/h time three times in a row. And this was a blistering quick time of 3.29 seconds.

A time that not only topples the BMW at the top, but also puts the Porsche ahead of any off-the-showroom floor Nissan GT-Rs that I have run, as well as the likes of Audi’s R8 V10, Mercedes-AMG GT-R, Ferrari’s 488 GTB, and so on, and on…

For the number pundits, the 0 to 200 km/h sprint is done in a mere 12.36 seconds, the quarter mile in 11.49 seconds at 193 km/h, the half mile in 18.20 seconds at 234 km/h, and the 1 km in 21.62 seconds at 247 km/h.

The top speed comes in at 300 km/h. I predict that this Porsche will stay on the top step of the SUV pile for some time.

And just in case you were thinking that the Turbo GT is merely a chip tuned version of the Turbo Coupe, you would be wrong.

Upgrades were carried out in the areas of the crankshaft, rods, pistons, timing chain, turbocharger, direct fuel injection, induction system and intercooler. The faster-shifting eight-speed Tiptronic S and the Porsche Traction Management (PTM) system have also been modified.

The look of the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT is summarised as lots of carbon on the exterior and lots of Alcantara in the interior. And for a cool R3 550 000 you could be driving the world’s most dynamic, and now also the fastest straight-line SUV as confirmed in the table below.

Click here to download the PDF.

For more information on the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT, visit the manufacturer’s website.