2021 Porsche Cayenne GTS Coupe Review: Porsche’s Three Most Beautiful Letters

Auto123 reviews the 2021 Porsche Cayenne GTS Coupe.

As I've mentioned in the past, I'm not an SUV fan. I understand families owning one for its practicality, storage, space and all the rest - but when it comes to the driving experience, you lose me. There are exceptions to the rule, however, and today's review takes a look at one of those. The Cayenne SUV has always been more about the sport than the utility, and its GTS variant represents the right balance between comfort and emotion, between sportiness and balance - and this is even more true with the 2021 model.

The return of the V8
My interest in recent GTS models had waned in recent year, mainly because of the V6 engines that came to power them. Actually power wasn't the issue; rather the issue was emotion, or the lack of it. This engine, although efficient, was very discreet. It seems that Porsche got the message, and it has returned the V8 to its place under the hood.

Porsche didn't have to look far to find it either. It used the 4.0L turbo V8 already found in the very powerful top-of-the-line Cayenne version, though the performance numbers a somewhat reduced here. Still, you still get 453 hp and 457 lb-ft of torque, enough to get this 2-ton beast from a stop to 100 km/h in 4.5 seconds. Beyond the power you feel, there's also the thrill of the sound of the V8 under full acceleration and the ideal pairing with the 8-speed automatic transmission that can also be used in manual mode with the steering wheel paddles when you feel like it.

As a result, this GTS is once again my favorite Cayenne, though I must point out that not everything is perfect. More on that in a bit.

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