Car Reviews > Porsche > Panamera Turbo S > Porsche Panamera Turbo S Car Review

Facts At A Glance
Prices: £122,623
Engine: 4.8-litre twin-turbo V8
Gearbox: 7-speed PDK, 4-wheel drive
Power/torque: 542 bhp/ 750 Nm
0-62 mph: 3.8 seconds
Top Speed: 191 miles per hour Combined
Economy: 24.6 miles per gallon
Emissions: 270g per kilometre
Equipment: Torque vectoring, adjustable suspension, sports exhaust, leather upholstery, 20-inch alloys, pop-up spoiler
On Sale: Now

Pace and refinement are on offer in the stunning new Turbo S – but at a price

The Panamera Turbo S is nothing less than an amazing vehicle, offering enough space for four adults and yet proving to be every bit as speedy as a Mercedes SLS AMG. 3.8 seconds is all it takes for the machine to go from 0-62 miles per hour and yet passengers are safely cocooned inside of the best and most comfortable cabins in the entire world. With a whole suite of electronic aids and four-wheel drive, the Turbo S is able to deploy that pace whenever and wherever it is required to.

Underneath the bonnet lies the exact same 4.8-litre twin-turbo V8 engine that can be found in the standard Panamera Turbo, yet the turbos have been blessed with lighter titanium blades, which serve to liberate an additional 49 bhp and 50 Nm.

Acceleration proves to be nothing less than brutal. There is the smallest hint of a lag, but the moment that those turbos spool up, it races forward in a manner akin to a supercar rather than a two-tonne saloon.

The good news is that all of that savage power proves to be perhaps surprisingly simple to control because of the unshakeable four-wheel drive plus all the electronic trickery that now comes as standard from Porsche including the likes of Dynamic Chassis Control, which enables the car to remain flatter when taking corners, the Sport Chrono Package that offers no less than three settings for tuning the engine response and suspension, and the Torque Vectoring Plus, which works with the differential in order to split power between the back wheels.

The suspension never feels uncomfortable even in its firmest setting, while the steering proves to be full of feel and the twin-clutch gearbox is incredibly fast. The carbon-ceramic brakes are able to deliver enormous stopping power, and yet they can be a little on the snatchy side at the apex of the pedal’s travel. When you up the pace, the Panamera ends up feeling even smaller than it really is thanks to the fast responses and very finely balanced handling. Only when you exit B roads and head into the centre of town are you reminded that you are actually driving something pretty huge.

There does remain however, one very big problem with the Turbo S and it is an elephant in the room that will not be going away any time soon. That problem is the enormous price tag, which is actually as much as £45,000 more expensive than the manual Panamera S and literally twice the price of the diesel variant. The manual Panamera S is also by far the sweetest driving model in the whole of the range, while the diesel variant is capable of traversing up to 750 miles on just one single tank.

There is no denying that the Porsche Panamera Turbo S is an amazing feat of engineering. Apart from the much smaller Aston Martin Rapide, there is literally nothing else on the market that offers such a combination of both pace and four-door practicality, and which accelerates like a super-car while handling like a poised 911. When you can have the diesel variant for half the price, however, it may not make sense to most

by Autoweb