Finally, the world has a car as outrageously and outlandishly large as its name. The Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid Sport Turismo is the high-tech four-door flagship for Porsche, with bags of speed, ferocious acceleration and space everywhere inside. The fuel-economy claims also match that outlandishness, and it’s well worth sniggering at the 3.0L/100km NEDC figure rather than planning your fuel stops around it.
Just try saying that name, either slowly or quickly. It takes practice. There’s a lot there.
For starters, it’s a Panamera. Secondly, it’s the Turbo S version, which makes it the fastest of the turbo-powered Panameras (which is all of them, actually, but Porsche only puts the Turbo badge on three of them, including this one).
Then the E-Hybrid bit denotes that it is, indeed, a hybrid and in the Porsche way, it’s a hybrid that uses its electric power as a performance-first technology, but it can double as an eco or frugality thing, with significant (claimed) zero-emission driving range, if that’s a frame of reference.
Then it’s also a Sport Turismo, which is the Panamera’s sleeker, longer body style (don't call it a wagon) that delivers extra luggage space and less frumpiness. A bit.
So now that I’ve finished explaining the name, you might need a coffee and a deep breath. I’ll wait...
Nuts and bolts
Welcome back. Here’s the interesting bit. This engine turns cars like the Audi RS 6 and RS 7 (and the plain old short-name Panamera Turbo) into thunderous weaponry. That’s not enough here.
So there’s still the hot-vee 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 sitting up the front, cranking out 404kW of power (the same tune as the Turbo S) and 770Nm of torque.
Typically, that performance will run through an eight-speed dual-clutch transmission and on to the four wheels, but not here.
Instead, the front-end of the transmission plays host to a permanently excited, synchronous 100kW electric motor, which delivers 400Nm of torque from just 100rpm.
Down the back, beneath the 425 litres of luggage capacity, there’s a 14kW/hour lithium-ion battery that gives the Porsche Panamera Tur... err, this car up to 49km of (claimed) silent, electric running at up to 140km/h.
As a pure electric car, it takes 6.1 seconds to reach not 100km/h, but the more urban-centric 60km/h.
It can recharge the battery from the V8 while it’s driving (which is hugely inefficient), or it can spend six hours attached to a household socket to do the same thing.
You can flick a knob on the steering wheel to drive it as an electric car, as a hybrid (with the car deciding how much electric and how much petrol power to use) or in Sport or the harder Sport+ modes, with everything working for unabashed speed.
And there’s plenty of that, with the, err, car capable of ripping to 100km/h in 3.4 seconds and from 100km/h to 200km/h in 8.9 seconds, on its way to a 310km/h top speed. So it will hit 200km/h in 11.9 seconds from a standing start.
For all its size, only the most expensive of the 911 family is faster, and none of the 718s or Cayennes or Macans.
The real world
Porsche might claim an NEDC number of 3.0L/100km and just 69g/km for CO2 emissions, but it’s no accident that it retains an 80-litre fuel tank. We saw it hovering around 19L/100km for mostly highway driving and we weren’t trying particularly hard.
Together, both motors punch out 500kW of power and 850Nm of torque. Those numbers don’t just add together, because they deliver their peaks at different engine speeds.
But it still has all of its available torque from just 1400rpm all the way to 5500, while its power peak is, by modern standards, something of a peak from 5750 to 6000rpm.
Together, too, the motors add up to a lot of weight. The car is a 2325kg proposition, which is more than the Cayenne Turbo and is trending towards needing a commercial vehicle licence.
It’s 290kg heavier than the Panamera Turbo S, which is nobody’s bantamweight, and the battery alone accounts for 120kg of that. Then there is all the cabling, the power electronics, the electric motor itself...
There’s more. As standard, the flagship Panamera (that’s short enough, we’ll use that from now on) scores three-stage air springs all around, active damping, active anti-roll bars, ceramic brakes (the lairy paint is not compulsory) and torque vectoring... it goes on, but 2.8 degrees of rear-wheel steering will cost you more money again.
On the road
If the spec sheet reads like cramming together a bunch of parts-bin lunacy, the driving experience belies it. It’s actually simple, calm and very easy to hammer or to cruise in, though belting through a series of interesting bends isn’t exactly its forte.
But it can do everything else, and do it well. You want a car that rides well? The weight of the thing steamrolls flat road imperfections with utter disdain. You want long, fast bends? Tip it in and stand on the throttle and feel the composure. You want city ride comfort? Got that covered, too.
A rule of thumb is that the smaller you shrink the side height of a tyre, the uglier the ride gets, but that’s not the case here. The front rubber is 275/35 ZR 21, while the rears are 325/30 ZR21 and they seem to disobey the rules of ride and handling.
Oddly, they seem to favour the ride part, rather than the handling part. It handles well enough, but it’s best to be ready to be stunned by everything it’s managing to do rather than expecting it to be a Cayman. It’s just too heavy, with too long a wheelbase to enjoy being flitted through the switchbacks.
It’s a different story across more open countryside, where it can gently ease over onto its outside tyres and stay that way, refusing to be shoved off line by anything and carrying stupendous amounts of speed through corners.
For all the complications below decks, the operations are simple. A well-weighted steering wheel tacks the nose around, the throttle pedal gives you more or less of either (or both) motor the same way any Porsche driver would be familiar with and only the brake pedal has a significantly different feel.
It regenerates energy for the battery whenever you brake lightly before the 10-piston front calipers clamp down on the carbon-ceramic discs, which means you’re doing two different jobs at different brake-pedal pressures.
The first of those feels a bit squidgy and artificial and it’s only deep down in the pedal pressure that things feel more like a normal firm, precise Porsche anchor.
Multi-trick pony
It’s astoundingly clever (and, to have worked yourself into a position to afford it, most people will assume you are, too) and it will do all of that while cossetting you in a gorgeous interior.
Porsche’s latest generation of big-car interior features black finish all over the centre console and you’ve been liberated from all the buttons that once infested anything wearing the Panamera badge.
It can go from superfast tourer to humble family hack without giving, or generating, a grumble of complaint. The luggage area is bigger and more usable than the standard Panamera’s boot, though it’s less usable than the ones in the brutal (but less techy and costly and weighty) Mercedes-AMG E 63 Estate or the Audi RS 6.
At the end, though, you have to wonder what it’s really for. And who.
You’re not going to be fooling anybody by telling them you bought it for its environmental credentials (there’s still a twin-turbo V8 tucked away in its nose, after all) and there’s a far more efficient (in the real world) hybrid in the Panamera range, with its electric motor helping out a V6 petrol engine.
But if you’re after a four-door Porsche with the best technology it currently sells, then by all means take some time to learn a name almost as long as the cheque you’ll write.
2017 Porsche Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid Sport Turismo pricing and specifications:
Price: $466,400 plus on-road costs
On sale: March 2018
Engine: 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, permanent synchronous electric motor
System output: 500kW/850Nm
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic, AWD
Fuel: 3.0L/100km
CO2: 69g/km
Safety rating: TBC