Test drive Porsche Cayenne GTS
The $ 78 is carried in a side slide around the lamp post. At a speed of 153 km / h, they cease to obey the driver, break off the trajectory and turn around. The speed drops to almost zero, the driver throws the gas, quickly shifts the steering wheel and continues his crazy dance ...
The $ 78 is carried in a side slide around the lamp post. At a speed of 153 km / h, they cease to obey the driver, break off the trajectory and turn around. The speed drops to almost zero, the driver throws the gas, quickly shifts the steering wheel and continues his crazy dance. On the speedometer again 200, although millions fly sideways hardly faster than 200 kilometers per hour. Non-studded tires are desperately polishing the ice, translating into a leisurely glide all 20 Nm of torque, which is given by the new engine of the upgraded Cayenne GTS.
The outgoing winter, the updated Cayenne managed to capture somewhere in the vicinity of the Swedish city of Skellefteå on the territory of a former military airfield, which had long been converted into a test site. In addition to the ice rinks, excellent slalom tracks are organized here - so slippery that you try not to get out of the car without a serious need. Polishing the ice in such conditions can hardly be considered an indicative exercise for evaluating the car, but you can guess why the organizers proposed it as part of the test of the updated model, sitting behind the wheel of a Cayenne Turbo S with a powerful V8. The top version, although it is more powerful than the GTS, but for such coverage, these conditional $ 130 are more difficult to carry than the simplified six. The revamped GTS isn't just lighter - it now has six instead of eight, a lighter front end and more advanced electronics.
The new 6-liter V3,6 develops 440 hp. - 20 more than the previous atmospheric G6 produced. The GTS remained the last powerful naturally aspirated Cayenne, but now there are none in the range. Talking about downsizing is evil can be left to aesthetic dreamers. Firstly, the new V1600 pulls excellently throughout the entire rev range, as expected and recklessly spinning closer to the top (maximum torque is reached in the range from 5000 to 8 rpm). And no mythical turbo sharpness. In any case, the 100-speed automatic does not bring it to her, dashingly and accurately shuffling gears. Unless in sport mode, the gearboxes at full throttle Cayenne GTS slightly explodes when shifting down, but the moment on the wheels is abundant in any situation. And it is clearly faster than the atmospheric predecessor: from standstill to 5,1 km / h in 5,7 s versus the previous 8 s, and the Porsche Cayenne GTS spends only 13 minutes XNUMX seconds on the North Loop - a result on the level of powerful sports sedans of the recent of the past.
Secondly, the sound. With the basic settings, the six-cylinder GTS voices very pleasantly and even intelligently, but as soon as you press a key on the tunnel, which changes the configuration of the exhaust tract, and the sound of the engine takes on iron, with a hoarse note, setting up a more aggressive mood. The overtones and harmonics, which six cylinders are not able to produce, are completed by a simposer - a special membrane that transmits the tuned sound of the intake tract to the cabin. This can also be called shamanism, but in Leipzig at least they did not follow the path of imitating the sound of an on-board audio system, as some manufacturers of inexpensive hot hatches do.
There is no simposer in the exhaust tract, but the turbo six itself shoots out quite efficiently. At the Skellefteo training ground, there was even a special place for demonstrating external sound accompaniment - a small cave where it was proposed to gasp heartily in various modes of operation of the power plant. The uterine exhaust roar, reflected and returned to the driver's ears through the open windows, is even more impressive than the acceleration dynamics - a collected, strong and juicy sound, as befits a Porsche.
The thundering V8 Turbo S sounds even better. The noble boom of low revs during kick-down almost instantly turns into a thermonuclear scream, in which a powerful dominant force is heard. Seeing the galloping Turbo S in the rear-view mirror, you should slow it down for at least a second, so that the next moment, clearing the road, enjoy this earnest gurgling roar.
And yet, in terms of ride quality, buying a Cayenne GTS seems to make more sense. Turbo S can and can lift the bar harder, but in a real fight agility and dexterity will be much more important, and the heavy top version has less of them. And not only because the motor weighs more.
Formally, in the price lists and model table of ranks, the Cayenne GTS takes place strictly in the middle, but it would be more correct to give it a special status. He is too different ideologically. Although outwardly - everything seems to be the same. Wheel arch extensions and raised side skirts in body color, twin rounded tailpipes, darkened lights and black emblems - the list of differences between the GTS and the base Cayenne fits into the concept of easy tuning. By the way, outwardly, the Cayenne GTS is almost identical to the Turbo S version - they have the same front bumpers with large air intakes and door sills from the same design package. Even the brakes are the same: six-piston with 390 mm discs at the front, four-piston with 358 mm discs at the rear. Another thing is that the GTS is equipped with a tuned suspension with a ground clearance reduced by 24 mm and a strong set of driver equipment.
As standard, the Cayenne GTS is equipped with the PASM damper adjustment system, which can continuously adjust the characteristics of each strut separately. The system's settings are sporty and the grip delivers really excellent grip no matter the quality of the coverage. The GTS feels a little harsh on bumps, but it can be forgiven for its not-too-delicate character for such a sense of the road. At the same time, the crossover does not seem furious at all even in Sport mode, but it seems to be also the merit of the air suspension. There is, after all, a "clean" version with a strict spring chassis, and the Germans assure that such a GTS turned out to be truly masculine, and will not suit for sissies for sure.
Build a Cayenne GTS for yourself, it's not hard to get into a big budget, but each iteration justifies itself by finely polishing the ride characteristics. It's like in big sports: in order to improve the result of a professional by thousandths of a second, you need not only a whole complex of training, but also special clothing, expensive sneakers of the required model, as well as verified nutrition. An amateur will not appreciate these expenses, but a connoisseur will understand what's what.
The optional PDCC (Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control) roll control system costs more than $ 1. It seems to be just active anti-roll bars, which are clamped or dismissed according to the commands of the electronics, but the system works: even if you turn the curve more abruptly, the body remains almost flat. In order to get a crossover weighing more than 953 tons to write turns in the style of some compact hatchback with a tightly tightened suspension, you can pay. But there is also the PTV Plus (Porsche Torque Vectoring) traction distribution system on the rear axle, which brakes the inner rear wheel so that the Cayenne can screw into corners even more actively, although it seems that there is nowhere better - the all-wheel drive transmission is happy to give priority to the rear axle , and the wide wheels on dry asphalt hold onto the road with a really stranglehold.
Equipped with the same systems, the Cayenne Turbo S language will not turn to be called less agile, but it feels the solidity and comfort of an expensive top version, which you do not want to poke with sharp movements and search for a corner entry point. The GTS was and remains the most driver-driven Cayenne, and the downsizing of the engine only helped it, giving it a little lightness and a little more sharpness. It is probably exceptionally good in its pure basic form (someone may even regret the absence of a version with a manual transmission in the current generation of the GTS), but mechatronic systems that bring the crossover capabilities to some cosmic level work so great that you really want have them all at once. This means that $ 78 is just the beginning.
