Perfect marriage of speed, power and luxury
The 2017 Porsche Panamera Turbo might not be the first car you’d pick for whisking the freshly betrothed from a chapel, but then again, with a little phonetic finessing, this German ballistic cocoon lines up quite nicely with an old wedding adage. Something bold, something new, something borrowed, and something blew our friggin’ doors off!
My gift to dear friends Melinda and Andy Ross on their wedding day was a brief ride in the most powerful non-hybrid iteration of Porsche’s redone executive fourdoor sedan.
The rear seats in the Panamera Turbo might not offer MercedesBenz S-Class headroom or legroom, but they are beautifully contoured for long distance comfort and provide support for an occasional foray into extreme g-force-land.
I knew the newlyweds had never experienced acceleration like the all-wheel-drive Panamera Turbo can deliver (0-to-100 km/h in 3.6 sec), so I gave them a little heads up as we ambled through the wellwishers, the 550-horsepower, 567 pound-foot 4.0-litre twin-turbo V-8 sending an ominous rumble through the cemetery.
Proving Germans do have a sense of humour, Porsche’s Launch Control is laughably easy to activate in an auto-shifting car, and all 2017 Panameras are fitted with a new and very brainy eight-speed twinclutch PDK gearbox. I turned the little Drive Mode select knob on the steering wheel to the most aggressive Sport Plus, pushed both the brake and throttle hard to the floor, gripped the steering wheel as the revs hovered around 4,500 rpm. Then I released the brake while keeping the throttle pinned. An army of electronics apportioned the ideal amount of power to each of the four 21-inch wheels, giving us a hole-shot for the ages.
But I wasn’t done yet. There were some lovely curves coming up so we blasted through at a speed that would seem wholly inappropriate for a luxury sedan weighing in at 2,000 kilograms. The optional rear-axle steering certainly assisted here, and the dual-clutch auto instantly cracked off shifts with biddings from the paddle shifters. Then it was time to throw out the anchors, and those six-piston front brakes pinned us against the seatbelts as we pulled into the driveway for the reception.
Drive the Turbo a bit more sensibly, and it shows itself to be a smooth, quiet and luxurious executive express. It’s not a big four-door
911, although you do sit sports-car low, and that near perfect driving position is pure Porsche.
The new Panamera’s cabin is a paragon of quality showing that no-nonsense Porsche esthetic.
The big change for 2017 is Porsche’s new Advanced Cockpit layout. There’s a big central touch screen, a new gauge cluster with a large analogue tach flanked by a quartet of configurable digital dials, and a glossy console with illuminated capacitive switches.
The previous landscape of endless “real” buttons on the console is gone. But when hit by direct sunlight the whole thing washes out. And while the screen graphics are crisp and menu system generally intuitive, some basic functions require digging through menus and too much finger prodding.
This model was armed with a generous selection of upgrades, about 20 grand worth, with the priciest item being the $6,370 Sport Package that includes rearwheel steering, a sport exhaust system and the Sport Chrono Package with the aforementioned Sport+ dynamic setting and gobsmacking Launch Control.
And without Launch Control, what kind of a wedding day would it have been?