Test-Driving The 2024 Porsche Cayenne S: Return Of The V8

Nothing sounds or delivers power quite like a big V8. For 2024 Porsche is once again offering eight cylinders in the Cayenne S, placing it above the V6 variant and below the all-out Super-SUV Cayenne Turbo GT and the cerebral high-performance variant, the Turbo E-Hybrid.

Like all Cayennes, even the extremist Turbo GT, the S V8 can serve seven days a week. With the addition of this twin-turbo V8, Cayenne S combines satisfying on-road performance with a considerable measure of utility.

Related to other variants of the Porsche corporate twin-turbo 4-liter V8, in Cayenne S the engine produces 468 horsepower and more importantly 442 lb. ft. of torque. Sprinting from a stoplight under heavy throttle, Cayenne S has a rich bass-baritone war cry right up to shift points, never sounding out of breath.

And at idle, well, the S V8 burbles and woofles like a speedboat waiting to be freed of the dock. There’s a subtle aural hint of old-time street rod with Glasspack exhausts, too.

Cayennes are the most practical everyday Porsches, particularly for families with outdoor hobbies, and Cayenne S might be the best adapted to those demands, an all-rounder, balancing performance, and practicality. Power flows to a conventional Tiptronic 8-speed transmission with a torque converter, not a PDK (Porsche Doppelkupplung) dual-clutch transmission as found in Panamera and the sports cars, where sharp, clipped shifts and precision are at a premium.

Instead, Cayenne’s Tiptronic offers smooth power delivery, and at low revs a dash of torque multiplication. Tiptronic feeds all that turbo-boosted torque into a 4-wheel drive system that’s well suited to towing, allowing Cayenne S V8 to pull a 1600-lb. warmblood in a small horse trailer, a speedboat, or perhaps a luxe and light weight Bowlus camping trailer. Hitch installed and the trailer’s braking system connected, Cayenne S V8 can pull up to 7700 lbs.

The test car seen here was nicely turned out, including optional air suspension, which I recommend as a mandatory option, along with Sport Chrono, rear-wheel steering, and all the camera/sensor paraphernalia that simplify parking in paddocks and quirky downtown garages.

Similar to the system on the new top-spec Panamera, the dampers (shock absorbers) have two valves to help control the wheel when jouncing up over a bump or being pressed firmly back down into the pavement. With two air chambers, a skinny one inside a fatty, the difference between Normal and Sport or Sport + calibrations is considerable—the difference is apparent even to the most oblivious of passengers.

Cayenne S V8 is a comfortable highway cruiser in Normal, but is more than capable of entertaining on an empty 2-lane mountain road. There’s an off-roading calibration, too, that lifts the vehicle up for campsites, boat docks and muddy horse barns.

Optional 21-inch wheels on the test vehicle were wrapped with Pirelli P Zeroes featuring a greater aspect ratio than found on the top-rung Cayenne Turbo GT: the rear sidewall’s height is 40 percent of the width of the tire’s footprint, and 45 percent at the front. Unlike the rubber bands used on Super-SUVs like Turbo GT or its half-brother the Lamborghini Urus Performante, on Cayenne S the sidewalls are tall enough to add a little springing, helping absorb imperfections in the road, softening the blow.

Also, unlike vehicles with super-aggressive tires, Cayenne S won’t tramline (settle into grooves in the pavement and resist turning) or suffer what chassis engineers call lateral shimmy, a side-to-side rocking that can occur when super-wide tires cross broken road surfaces like those typically found in my native Los Angeles.

All that practicality and utility aside, Cayenne S V8 is a Porsche after all, and we want easily understood performance. Pay for the right options, in particular Sport Chrono which sharpens powertrain performance when engaged, and the S V8 will hit 60 mph in 4.4 seconds.

Video Below: Porsche’s tile system used to select elements for the HUD. Also, the 360-degree parking system. The NVIDIA chip stitches up feed instantly. Parking becomes a video game.

Bear in mind that is a mere 0.1-second slower than a Boxster 718 GTS with its big 394-horsepower 4-liter Motorsport engine. Cayenne S V8 is not a Super-SUV like its athletic big brother the Turbo GT, but S V8 has legitimate performance credentials. Listen to the war cry and enjoy the acceleration—S V8 will not disappoint when you need to blow out bad thoughts from a tedious meeting.

More important than such stoplight antics, Cayenne S’s V8 delivers nearly instantaneous on-demand oomph for passing on boulevards and the Interstate. Overtaking a Class 8 Kenworth is easily accomplished with a couple of kickdowns and full throttle. Going back to practicality, you won’t have trouble towing up a mountain road, either.

Porsche has folded together several smaller and separate internal efforts at personalization to create Manufaktur, the equivalent of the Rolls Bespoke Studio, Lamborghini Ad Personam, or Ferrari and its atelier services. One can create a one-of-one or at least a one-of-few Cayenne S V8 by simply speccing different leather, materials, and patterns. The door panels have three different areas that can be personalized. Customers can explore digital rendering of their choices on big flat screens in dealer showrooms. Such programs are the logical culmination of “mass customization” efforts of the past two decades. Basically, the interiors have a variety of plug-and-play trim pieces, all easily removed and repaired at dealer level.

Aging Boomer Porschephiles who want to remain in 1971 may still scoff at Cayenne, but paraphrasing a key line from the movie “The Right Stuff” is the very best rejoinder: No Bucks, No Buck Rogers. And at Porsche, No Cayenne Bucks means no GT3, no GT4, no RS, no Turbo S cabrio, no Le Mans victories. I was a Boy Editor in Porsche’s darkest days more than 30 years ago, when sales of 911s, 928s and 968s barely amounted to some few thousands. Porsche was forced to take in Mercedes laundry, helping develop the first Factory Hammer, the 500E. Porsche could have become something quaint and esoteric like Morgan or TVR or Aston.

Over the past two decades, Porsche has shifted more than one and a quarter million Cayennes to happy customers, and that profit combined with similarly strong sales of Macan has funded development of extraordinary Porsche sports cars that otherwise might never have existed.

Cayenne S can also bridge our current generation gap, allowing a new population to understand the joys of a fast, capable vehicle. Daylight Savings brings late sunrises that can lead to groggy children who sleepwalk through breakfast. Buckle them into a Cayenne S for a 5-minute jaunt to school, thump the throttle for a few seconds on a lonely stretch of road, and those groggy children will come to full attention with a shot of adrenaline, miraculously transformed, bright and alert for a busy day of French, ballet, piano, engineering lab, and long division. Return of a V8 option has transformed the character of Cayenne S every bit as much.