I have no understanding whatsoever of why you’d buy a Porsche Cayenne of any variety.  Let me just get that off my chest.  I do wonder whether the Cayenne buyer goes to the dealership, sees a 911 and then says ‘no wait, I need something bigger than this‘.  That’s fair enough, the 911, whilst iconic, doesn’t exactly feature the most roomy cabin, or indeed masses of luggage space.

However, why buy a Porsche at all if you aren’t going to buy a 911, or, at a push, a Cayman or Boxster?  It beggars belief.  Especially when the vehicle in question here resembles a BMW X-3 (what an ugly car).  Even the Hummer-like dimensions of the BMW X-5 are (slightly) more appealing.

This brings me to why people must be buying the Cayenne.  They want unbelievable, balls to the wall; I can destroy anything on the road performance.  They also want to have a Porsche badge on the front of the car - whilst also being able to use it as a Chelsea Tractor.

This brings us to the latest offering from Porsche, the Cayenne GTS.  This car is big.  It is also quick, with a front-slung 4.8 litre turbo-charged monster just waiting to be unleashed from your right foot.  It is certainly a license-loser as well.  But what makes it different is that Porsche has done something remarkable in this package - they have designed a 4×4 that has some of the best handling of any car in the class, and many that aren’t.

Granted, it isn’t going to win any awards.  Then again, if you can afford a car like this (£54,350), then I can’t imagine you’ll have problems with the road tax fund license - nor any issue with driving such a monster.  Nonetheless, whichever side of the ‘green’ fence you fall on, 361 grammes per kilometre is quite a bit, I’m sure you agree.

Of course, even the richest of drivers can get annoyed - a touch of the road rage if you will.  No doubt, those who drive the Porsche Cayenne GTS will feel a little bit of this every time they have to pull up at the garage.  The reason being, they’ll be doing this fairly often.  At an ‘official’ level of 18mpg, that’s not good news.  Put down the power though, and you could even be looking at dropping to a single digit.  Not good.

Yes, you’ve all been waiting patiently through this critique, so I may as well give it to you.  The figures are 0-60 in a scary, very fast (for this size vehicle) 6.1 seconds.  The big V8 that churns out 405bhp will also propel you beyond 157 miles per hour - would you do that in such a big machine though?

Of course, you can kit out your Porsche with the variety of latest safety technology, such as Active Suspension Management (a good idea for those who are considering driving it on anything but an A road at speed) and Dynamic Chassis electrics that will make the car hold the road even better.

The car (as you can see) looks quite mean, low and aggressive - all of which gives you an even clearer idea that this is not simply a ’standard’ 4×4.  You won’t be driving up any hills in this.

So what’s the point?  I’m still not that clear to be honest.  It is big on the outside, but there’s not a vast amount of space on the inside.  It is, however, incredibly powerful.  Few things on the road will keep up with it.  But why?  This is a question I’m still asking myself, and in today’s ‘we do really care about the planet’ environment, this beast seems to have made itself obsolete already.  Maybe that’s why we should salute it…