Hyper-SUV

Porsche's new Nürburgring record holder makes an incontrovertible case for SUVS with cornering abilities. Being a GT-lite makes it all the more impressive

Price: R3 550 000 0-100 km/h: 3,3 seconds Top speed: 300 km/h Power: 471 kW Torque: 850 Nm CAR fuel index: 14,28 L/100 km CO₂: 271 g/km

To suggest the Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT's DNA string reads like a bowl of spaghetti would be a bit of an understatement.

In VW Group's arsenal of SUVS of mass destruction, it's ruder than its identical twin the Audi RSQ8, yet fractionally less frenetic than the Lamborghini Urus.

But here's the important thing ... irrespective of its boss-level status, the Cayenne Turbo GT isn't a real Porsche GT.

Although it shares the insignia reserved for the overachievers atop the 911 and Cayman ranges, this Cayenne has never seen the holy land of Porsche's Weissach skunkworks, nor was it finessed and blessed by the marque's crack squad of race-winning aces.

Scrutiny of the Cayenne Turbo GT's raft of upgrades reads like a re-armament shopping list. The 4,0-litre twin-turbo V8 EA825 (a hotter version of Audi's EA824) has been developed in-house and assembled in Zuffenhausen, where the cylinder block received a reinforced crankshaft, conrods, pistons and timing chain. On the periphery, the intake and intercooler have been beefed up to match the additional bursts of fuel from the new injectors.

On paper alone, the Turbo GT's 471 kW at 6 000 r/min and 850 N.m available from 2 300 r/min makes the standard Cayenne Turbo's 404 kW/770 N.m seem somewhat pedestrian.

Among the features not offered as standard on a Cayenne Turbo are the GT's rear-axle steering, torque vectoring plus, dynamic chassis control to actively control the electromechanical anti-roll bars, and carbon ceramic brake discs, of which the front callipers are powered by ten pistons seizing a flying saucer-sized pair of 440 mm discs.