Porsche Cayenne GTS (2007) CAR review

Cayenne GTS? What’s that then?

It’s a more sports-biased version of Porsche’s SUV supercar that seems to wind up just about everyone with an opinion, yet sells jolly nicely. Porsche also justifies the Cayenne’s existence by reminding us that it funds the cars that we all get in a froth about like the GT3, GT3 RS, and GT2. Indeed during the press conference at the GTS’s launch in Portugal, the Cayenne was candidly described as a 'cash cow'. In fact, Porsche today announced that its pre-tax profits for 2006/07 were €5.9 billion, up from €2.1 billion the previous year. The boys in Stuttgart reckon that there’s a niche between the Cayenne S and the Turbo - and the GTS is it. Porsche have seen how successful the Range Rover Sport has been and they want a slice of the action, plus everyone knows that these leviathans spend more time on the road than on the rough, so why not just give the punters what Porsche reckons they want?

And what do they want?

Well it would appear that they want a Turbo-look body kit, 21-inch alloys and low profile tyres. They want it lowered with Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM), or the option of Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control (PDCC). They want an extra 20bhp from the 4.8-litre V8 and a standard six-speed gearbox with shorter ratios. They want to hear the world-ending thunder from the engine so they also want a sports exhaust. Oh, and they want individual sports seats front and back and some new colours, which include a tasteful GTS Red and a very bling Nordic Gold. In a nutshell? They want to pose.