2019 Porsche Cayenne Turbo: A tall glass of speedy utility
Earlier this year, Jeep announced the Trackhawk, a Grand Cherokee with Goliathlevel power arriving to seek and destroy any utility vehicles that have ambitions of going fast. It’s an incredible vehicle in its own right, particularly at the price point. But there’s already been a Goliath of SUVs for years now — the Porsche Cayenne Turbo — and the new 2019 model has arrived to reestablish its place in the pecking order.
It all starts in the engine bay, and the addition of the capitalized word Turbo still means something significant in Stuttgart, even when nearly everything Porsche builds these days has at least one turbo(charger). The 2019 Cayenne Turbo gets to work with a twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V-8 that makes 550 horsepower and 567 lb-ft of torque. That’s shy of the Trackhawk’s 707 horses but up 30 horsepower and 14 lb-ft of torque on the current Turbo and only 20 horsepower less than the 2018 Turbo S. Using the same eight-speed automatic transmission and standard all-wheel drive, the new Cayenne Turbo can sprint from zero to 60 mph in a breathtaking 3.9 seconds, Porsche claims, and has a top speed of 177 mph. The optional Sport Chrono package is said to chop the zero-to-60-mph time to 3.7 seconds, one-tenth quicker than Porsche’s claim for the 2018 Turbo S model. (And, yes, a new, presumably even more bonkers Turbo S will be re-
leased soon.) As with all new Cayennes, the Turbo rides on the shorter version of Audi’s MLB Evo platform.
The 2019 Turbo adopts the styling of the refreshed Cayenne, with design highlights including quad-cluster headlights and a rear light bar that stretches from taillight to taillight, but Turbo-specific fascias differentiate it from lesser versions. It also has its own exhaust pipes and 21-inch wheel design wearing 285/40ZR-21 tires in the front and 315/35ZR-21 in the rear. The Turbo has Porsche Surface Coated Brakes (PSCB) as standard. These new PSCB brakes, which are optional on the Cayenne and Cayenne S, have cast-iron rotors coated with tungsten carbide to increase pad-to-rotor friction (and thus performance) and longevity, while decreasing brake dust. The Turbo also employs an active spoiler with an air-brake mode, a six-level adaptive suspension fitted with air springs, and five selectable terrain settings for pavement, mud, gravel, sand, or rocks.
The new Cayenne Turbo comes standard with more premium equipment than before. Every model has a heated sport steering wheel, leatherclad and heated front and rear seats (the front buckets are of a new design with 18-way power adjustability), and navigation with Porsche’s Connect Plus, which includes traffic-update, Wi-Fi, and Apple CarPlay capability.
It all comes at an upgraded price, too. The previous model started at $119,150; the dollars tick up to $125,650 for 2019. But that’s chump change in this price category and still significantly cheaper than the $162,650 2018 Cayenne Turbo S. The 2019 Cayenne Turbo will arrive in American showrooms in autumn 2018.