This First-Gen Porsche Cayenne GTS Does A Whole Lot For Not Much Money

We’re just going to come right out and say it: we think the original Porsche Cayenne is a modern classic. Yes, it was shunned by the Porsche diehards on its 2002 launch for the audacity of not being a two-door sports car, and no, time hasn’t exactly been kind to its looks.

But that combination of Porsche chassis know-how, practicality, a surprising amount of off-road talent and some properly stonking engines has only grown more appealing over the years, especially as the car’s been hit hard with the depreciation stick. Heck, Porsche’s even doing full factory recommissions of them now. What more do you need to know?

That led us, with an air of inevitability, to the classifieds, to do some window shopping, and we only had one variant in mind: the GTS. This wasn’t the fastest first-gen Cayenne – that was the later 542bhp Turbo S – but as is usually the case with GTS-badged Porsches, it occupied a very appealing middle ground while doubling down on the driver appeal.

The GTS sat 24mm lower than standard, thanks to sports suspension, and was around 14mm wider too, owing to its arch flares. It also came on 21-inch lightweight alloys and got Porsche Active Suspension Management adaptive dampers as standard. It even came as standard with a six-speed manual, although nearly everyone – including the original owner of the car we’ve found – opted for the six-speed Tiptronic S auto, which itself was sharpened up for the GTS.

And even if it wasn’t the absolute speed hero of the Cayenne range, nobody was going to accuse it of being slow, either. Its 4.8-litre naturally aspirated V8 developed 405bhp and 369lb ft of torque, good for 0-62mph in 6.1 seconds and a top speed of 157mph, and made a great noise on the way there.

So what of the car we’ve found on Autotrader? It’s a silver example from 2008, the year the GTS was introduced, and carries an indicated 107,000 miles – fairly high, but far from the leggiest Cayenne of this age. Issues on the MOT history mainly relate to tyres, and the car does apparently come with a service history – no guarantee of excellence, especially when it comes to a used luxury SUV, but a nice bit of reassurance. 

All this is on sale at £9475, although you’ll naturally need to take into account the likely astronomical running costs of a 4.8-litre V8, not to mention a lightly scary £760 a year in tax.

Still, to wheel out a horribly cliched way of wrapping up articles like this, it really is a lot of car for the money, and could serve as everything from a stylish, practical cruiser to the basis for a particularly left-field off-road build. We’d be inclined to just keep it standard save for maybe an exhaust to uncork even more of that glorious V8 rumble – there’ll almost certainly never be another engine like it fitted to a Cayenne, especially not the new electric one.