(Bloomberg) -- Porsche AG’s global bestseller is not the 911 sports car that earned it fame with racing wins and Dua Lipa endorsements. Instead, it’s the humble Cayenne SUV. In 2023, Porsche delivered almost 90,000 Cayennes worldwide—more than any other of its models—accounting for nearly 30% of total sales.
The largest vehicle Porsche offers has cultivated such popularity because even though its appearance is uninspiring—nobody I know has a poster of a large family SUV on their wall—it’s a pleasant study in contradictions. It has ample storage space without seeming overly bulky; its heavy SUV powertrain doesn’t hamper the powerful, balanced performance; it is practical and capable in all sorts of conditions yet still feels high-end inside the cabin.
I was reminded of this on my recent journey from Los Angeles to Denver—and back—in the 2025 Porsche Cayenne GTS. While it remains largely unchanged from previous years and doesn’t stand out visually in a sea of luxury SUVs, this new iteration of one of Porsche’s most popular attractions since 2002 firmly bolsters its case for loyalty.
The Essentials
Situated near the top of the Cayenne lineup, the Cayenne GTS comes in two versions, the regular SUV and the Coupe, which has a lower-sloped roofline but whose four doors belie that misleading moniker. (GTS is short for “Gran Turismo Sport,” a loose reference to a touring vehicle built to cover long distances at a quick clip. “Coupe,” of course, means a vehicle with two doors.) Only the Cayenne Turbo E-Hybrid and Cayenne Turbo GT surpass the GTS in power and price. I drove the regular variant in a festive carmine red with a red and black interior and 22-inch wheels that look like they came straight from a 911.
The Cayenne GTS comes with Volkswagen AG’s tried-and-true 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 engine that achieves 493 horsepower and 486 pound-feet of torque. Those specs have slightly increased over 2024, and new standard additions such as adaptive dampers, torque vectoring and traction management to stabilize body roll made the GTS a quick and sharp-handling driver over the dry pavement to Denver. Top speed is 171 mph; zero to 60 mph is 4.2 seconds with the Sport Chrono package. All-wheel-drive and eight-speed automatic shifting come standard.
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The fuel efficiency could have been better, with official paperwork promising an 18 mpg combined efficiency (15 mpg in the city) that I found aligned with real-world driving on my trip—which included 9% grades passing abandoned mines and a herd of elk. Still, I much preferred the multiple 10-minute stops at Terrible’s and Love’s gas stations rather than having to locate, say, an electric plug station and then wait an hour or more to recharge. Endurance driver Alex Roy just set a record for making it cross-country using autonomous driving in a Tesla, but for now I’ll stick with gasoline and human driving on my own trips.
Pricing starts at $124,900, but upgrades such as dynamic chassis control ($3,580) and those 911 Turbo-inspired wheels ($1,630) pushed the sticker to $145,185. For reference, Cayenne E-Hybrids start at $157,000; the Cayenne Turbo GT, $203,800.
The Good
In all I covered more than 2,000 miles on the trip to Denver through Las Vegas and Grand Junction, Colorado, past Aspen and Vail and Leadville; blue skies and bare ground prevailed through the entire Rocky Mountain portion of the drive. This SUV proved a reliable workhorse over mountain highways and small-town streets, with a comfortable, general livability thanks to elements such as air suspension and a capacious rear end that held multiple travel bags, winter coats and assorted supplies. Things like cup holders, phone chargers and storage bins were placed at ease, where my hands and needs naturally fell. The interior is sleek and unfussy without feeling like anything has been scrimped.
Defined by a subtly curved screen that’s behind the steering wheel and blended into the rest of the dashboard, the cockpit combines real buttons and knobs for essentials such as music volume and seat adjustment, but it offers touchscreen controls to do things such as sync Bluetooth or program the navigation. It’s a healthy mix of innovative technology that helps rather than annoys. The five circle gauges behind the steering wheel showing speed, RPM and the like caused some fans consternation when Porsche changed the analog gauges to digital in 2024, but I found the change an upgrade that makes models without the new configuration feel dated. I had fun changing the display from the traditional five-gauge lineup to show things such as detailed route guidance and the covers of random albums from Richard Hawley, INXS and Kerala Dust.
Sound was a big factor for me on this trip, since it took almost 15 hours each way to complete the journey. By sound I mean the engine note—the GTS has a loud new burbling, gurgling sport exhaust that rumbled at low speeds and instantly announced that this Cayenne is not entry-level, but special.
By sound I also mean the lack of road nose inside the vehicle at high speeds. (I was happy to discover the speed limit in Utah is 80 mph, which is 10 mph higher than most California byways.) Thermal- and noise-insulated glass kept my ears from that numbed hum that sometimes happens after being in the car too long, and the so-called AudioPilot noise compensation that came with the Bose sound system masked extraneous static. The insulated glass costs $1,170 for front and rear complete coverage, or $580 if you get it just in the front. The vehicle I drove had it only in the front, and I still got out at the end of each day feeling surprisingly fresh, not worn down by the drive.
The Bad
Ideally for a long trip, the GTS would have had slightly softer, more adjustable thrones than the sport seats it bears, which felt flat after a few hours and lacked the separate headrests that allow for additional cranial customization.
The car flashed a few electronic warnings on my dashboard as I made my way up Interstate 70; the notices about unavailable sensors were minor but felt pesky, like errant fruit flies trying to escape a windshield.
If You Remember One Thing
Although the Cayenne GTS is priced higher than its counterparts from Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, you won’t find anything superior for agile, crisp handling, a powerful and balanced powertrain and a fresh, modern interior.
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