Acclaimed GT division raises the performance bar to 1093bhp, tunes the handling, hones the aero and drops the fighting weight
MATT SAUNDERS @thedarkstormy1
TESTED 19.3.24, SEVILLE, SPAIN ON SALE SUMMER PRICE £186,300
This was nothing if not predictable: Porsche’s cars tend to get faster and more powerful as they get older, one rarefied, GT-badged version at a time. The very idea of a near-1100bhp Taycan, if it had been mooted back in September 2019, during the digestion of those preliminary first drive verdicts on the original Taycan Turbo S – which, to the very last one, reported how savagely, almost problematically rapid was Porsche’s bold new 751bhp electric GT – would have caused bouts of hysteria in certain quarters of the specialist media. And yet here we are.
Porsche will doubtless claim that it’s only exploring the outer limits of the performance that’s already bound up in its facelifted four-seat electric poster child – in some cases quite accurately, as I’m about to explain. And yet it just so happens to have done enough exploring to put the forthcoming Lotus Emeya R firmly in its place on paper, and likewise the Tesla Model S Plaid and forthcoming Polestar 5.
We performance tested the Tesla last year (no one-foot rollout here) at 2.4sec from rest to 60mph, and it has a claimed top speed of 160mph. This new Taycan will crack 60mph in just 2.1sec, says Porsche, and go on to 190mph on the button. Better chuck an extra SpaceX rocket booster on that new Tesla Roadster, Mr Musk: quite plainly, Weissach isn’t in a mood to be trifled with.
Is this, you may wonder, a proper GT department Porsche, then? It’s certainly badged like one and it was introduced to the press, at Seville’s Monteblanco circuit the other week, with both Nürburgring and Laguna Seca lap records to match. (No four-door has ever lapped the Nordschleife quicker, they say.)
But there was no Andreas Preuninger on hand to enthuse effusively about its tirelessly honed circuit capability – and if there had been, I suspect the GT division boss would have bristled somewhat if we’d have put this car into the same bracket as his beloved 911 GT3 RS and 718 Cayman GT4 RS. It feels a little as if Porsche is drawing an invisible line between ‘proper’ GT cars and these new Turbo GTs, as if that subtle shift in nomenclature lets the GT department admit involvement with the latter but not take full ownership, as with BMW’s M Performance derivatives.
Or perhaps I’m just being a bit cynical. Thi
