2019 Porsche Cayenne GTS
Porsche鈥檚 cash-cow Cayenne SUV(with Android Car Gps) now accounts for about a third of the automaker鈥檚 worldwide sales, and it currently comes in seven flavours. Porsche鈥檚 cash-cow Cayenne SUV(with Android Car Gps) now accounts for about a third of the automaker鈥檚 worldwide sales, and it currently comes in seven flavours. 108,200. It鈥檚 not the fastest. 178,100 Cayenne Turbo S. And it鈥檚 not the most fuel efficient. 87,700 Cayenne S E-Hybrid, all depending on your driving style and needs. And it is certainly not the least expensive. No, the Cayenne GTS is billed as the most agile of this portly SUV family - the one that鈥檚 going to make you say 鈥淲ow, this thing drives like a gigantic sports car.鈥?Well, darned if that isn鈥檛 the case. GTS rockets from bend to bend, poised, flat and eager to be pushed some more. The steering is sending back plenty of feedback, and there are no question marks as to what the chassis is up to. Am I going to push wide? Is the back end going to get loose? Body roll appears to be a foreign concept here with the GTS鈥?standard 20 mm lowered air suspension and Porsche Active Suspension Management.
4,010) and your Cayenne GTS would be even more impressive. Yes, the SUV鈥檚 considerable mass makes itself known, and your posterior rides well above the tarmac that streams under those black-satin 20-inch wheels, but damn if the Cayenne GTS doesn鈥檛 feel like a鈥?Porsche. To riff once again on that well-used phrase, this thing handles like no 2,185 kg SUV has any right to. The last Cayenne GTS I drove had the whip-crack naturally-aspirated 4.8L V8 that spit out 420 hp and 380 lb-ft of torque at 3,500 rpm, and made glorious V8 noises while doing so. Those days are gone. In the interest of better fuel consumption and lower emissions, the Cayenne GTS now sports a 3.6L twin-turbo V6. Yes, this pressurized engine is more powerful (440 hp) and has more torque (442.5 lb-ft from 1,600 rpm), but what it gains in grunt it loses in soul. This V6 really doesn鈥檛 sound like much - kinda鈥?flat and uninspired. Activating the Sport Exhaust button give it a bit more blare and feeds some sound into the cabin. 880 Sports Chrono Package, this ute will blast to 100 km/h in a mere 5.1 seconds and top out at 262 km/h. Compared to the V8, it knocks a few precious seconds off the Nurburgring lap time, and gawd knows that is something we must have. Transport Canada rates the 2016 Porsche Cayenne GTS at 14.5 L/100 km city and 10.4 L/100 km highway. Premium juice, of course. Oh, and the Cayenne has a huge tank so long distance cruising can be a fairly uninterrupted affair. If installing an Android Car Stereo in your car, that would be great!
It鈥檚 said to deliver between 20Nm and 30Nm of torque in most scenarios (although it can supply up to 100Nm), and as well as improving efficiency, saving up to 8g/km in CO2 emissions, it helps to reduce turbo lag. As we head into the hills near Welshpool, a couple of things are almost immediately evident. Firstly, there is a considerable step up in cabin quality, with our HSE鈥檚 Kvadrat wool-blend upholstery matched by acres of double-stitched, padded material across the dashboard and in the door liners. The twin-screen infotainment and car control system will be a quantum leap for Evoque owners, too, with a crisper resolution than before and quicker responses, not to mention added functionality and the likes of Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. The second thing that springs to mind is how quiet it is. When we suggest that even from the passenger seat, this already feels more like a true baby Range Rover than the old Evoque ever did, Cross smiles knowingly. 鈥淭hat was one of our real goals,鈥?he reveals. 鈥淚t鈥檚 getting harder and harder to drive quickly, and it鈥檚 becoming less and less socially acceptable anyway.
So what we think customers wanted with this car was more luxury, more comfort, more connectivity. We worked as hard on wind-noise isolation as we did on powertrain refinement.鈥?That鈥檚 an oblique reference to the Audi Q5, which insiders suggest was the main benchmark, ahead of the BMW X3 and Porsche Macan. Cross explains our car has continuously variable dampers - an option across the range, unless you go for the largest 21-inch rims, at which point they become compulsory. But even so, there鈥檚 compliance over rippled and broken surfaces. We鈥檇 probably settle for the look of 19-inch wheels in return for a teeny bit more tolerance over big potholes, but image-focused Evoque buyers will be gifted more comfort on the larger alloys than they鈥檝e experienced previously. The roads get quieter as we head into the wilds of Wales and Cross begins to show off the Evoque鈥檚 capability when the speeds rise. This car has Active Driveline - a similar system to that offered on the Jaguar E-Pace and Ford Focus RS, which uses a rear-mounted double-clutch to offer torque vectoring on the rear axle, helping turn-in.
But with Cross at the wheel, and even on sinuous Welsh B-roads, there鈥檚 no drama; progress is rapid, but serene. And that鈥檚 the same in Dynamic mode, which delivers added punch in throttle responses, pushing more torque towards the rear and tightening up body control. But it never comes close to making Cross look like he鈥檚 hustling along a hot hatch. Would it be fair, we ask, to say an E-Pace would be dancing around a bit more along the same route? 鈥淧robably a little,鈥?Cross replies. It鈥檚 genuinely hard to feel the mild-hybrid tech doing its work from the passenger seat, and Cross says it鈥檚 not much more evident from behind the wheel. Even so, this is far from the cleanest new Evoque. You鈥檒l need a diesel example (鈥淭ry the mid-spec one; it鈥檚 plenty quick enough,鈥?Cross suggests) if you want to dip under 150g/km of CO2 emissions. Market forces and possibly legislation will determine if Land Rover鈥檚 engineers have succeeded in making the Evoque more environmentally acceptable, while retaining off-road capability that is authentic, even if it鈥檚 rarely used. But on the basis of this short exposure to the Mk2 Evoque, this already feels like a car that delivers where it counts.