The 2022 Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT Is a Brilliant SUV

This is what making money in the vehicle-building business looks like. The 2022 Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT will soon be the quickest, most powerful, and most expensive sport utility vehicle ever brought to market by Germany’s greatest performance car maker. The powerful and quick parts are fun. The expensive part is what makes it possible. And that’s why Porsche makes so much money.

The fun part first: Start with the big number.

Well, it’s all big numbers, but this first big number is about the engine. It’s 631, as in horsepower, from the revised EA825 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged V-8, which is based on Audi’s EA824 4.0-liter V-8; responsibility for developing engines has now passed on to Porsche, and this one is produced at that company’s plant in Zuffenhausen, Germany. Yeah, this engine is a beast.

Compared to the 541-horsepower version used in the pokey old Cayenne Turbo, its turbochargers use compressor wheels a millimeter larger in diameter, 61mm up from 60, incorporating revised blade material and a curvature which assists in raising boost pressure from 21 to 23 pounds per square inch. To fortify the rest of the engine for the additional oomph, the crankshaft’s throws have been tweaked and its balancing has been revised; the connecting rods have been shortened and strengthened; piston architecture has been modified to include larger diameter pins; and the vibration dampener has a higher-density cast-iron swing ring in place of the aluminum one. To keep things firing, fuel injector output has been increased and the new spark plugs have higher platinum content. It’s something more than a mere turning of the boost screws, even if it is short of a full redesign.

As colon-whacking as the increase in horsepower output may be, the big move is in torque production. Porsche claims a thunderballing increase in gross grunt from 567 to 626 pound-feet of peak torque, most of that down low where it counts for moving a two-and-a-half-tonner off the line. Porsche actually claims those 626 pattering pound-feet are produced consistently from 2300 to 4500 rpm, and that the torque tails above and below that meaty middle are generous as well.

In the land of mysterious convergence, the Cayenne Turbo GT’s 626-pound feet of twist matches that of its VAG barn-mate, the Lamborghini Urus, though Lambo claims the Urus makes another ten horsepower, 641 in total, from its version of the 4.0-liter V-8. Conspiracy or coincidence? You decide.

What’s undeniable is the Cayenne GT Turbo feels like it should be propelling billionaires on sub-orbital joy rides. Using the same ZF-built eight-speed automatic that has spread throughout the automotive industry like an aggressive virus, and putting that grunt out through the standard all-wheel-drive system to great effect, the feel is pure Bezos-Branson-Musk hyperthrust. Clawing into the tarmac using specific Pirelli PZero Corsa tires on gorgeous 22-inch wheels, it’s a sensation of effortless thrust. Up front are 285/35ZR22s; in back, 315/30ZR22s. Porsche claims a 0-60 mph time of 3.1 seconds. That’s a lie; it’s quicker than that, and likely quicker than the Urus as well.

Porsche also claims a top speed of 186 mph, which is safely four mph behind the Lamborghini with which it shares so much. R&T demands that we soon be given the chance to evaluate these outrageous claims. We’ll need several examples of each vehicle for one to seven years. That should cover us between our conviction, our sentencing, and the expected length of our incarceration.