Porsche Cayenne GTS 2020 UK review

Look, I’m not your mother. It’s not up to me to tell you whether or not you need a four-seat, five-door coupé that weighs (let me check… cripes, that is a lot) 2145kg and returns (yikes, that’s not a lot) 24.8mpg. Let’s just go with it for now.

This, then, is the Porsche Cayenne GTS Coupé (you don’t have to have the coupé; the regular SUV bodystyle is available as well). It’s designed to sit, as Porsche’s GTS models routinely do, between the ‘regular’ line-up and the Turbo models. They’re meant to be sportier. For sure.

Here that means it gets a twin-turbocharged 4.0-litre petrol V8 engine. The previous GTS had a V6, so this is rather nice news for aural purists, and it makes 454bhp at 6000-6500rpm and 457lb ft steadily between 1800rpm and 4500rpm. So quite a broad powerband, delivered via an eight-speed automatic ’box to all four wheels, with torque vectoring and an active rear differential. Which is quite promising.

GTS models are often our favourite in the model range for their dynamic straightforwardness. The Cayenne GTS is even offered on coil springs as standard, although our test car runs on adjustable-height air suspension and 22in – twenty-two! – wheels, rather than a standard 21in set.

Those are part of – and you’ll like this – the Lightweight Sports Pack, which costs from £5909. It includes a carbonfibre roof, for what difference that will make, but also checked seat fabric, of which I’m rather fond.

Anyway, as a coupé, the Cayenne GTS costs from £88,750. But by the time you’ve thrown on some options, let’s call it a round hundred grand.

And it is good, you know. Yes, I know cars like this are no more excusable than compact crossovers, but seriously: the things it can do are quite something.

Its interior feels terrifically well put together. There’s some Alcantara, which is always bound to win me over, and the fit and finish is excellent, if bleakly austere, with only the odd faux-metal highlight to lift the dark greys. And too many areas that attract fingerprints.