The latest teaser of the 2017 Porsche Panamera comes with a story. That story is about courage, the courage to break a record. Are you willing to guess what the new Panamera five-door sedan is up to based on the description of the video teaser?
“Be prepared for the fastest luxury sedan on Earth,” is what Porsche can say at the present moment. To my ears, I guess that the manufacturer actually refers to the 2017 Porsche Panamera Turbo (or Turbo S). You see, the Turbo (or Turbo S) has what it takes to make the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio put its money where its mouth is. Indeed, ladies and gents, Porsche can’t contain its excitement to announce that the Panamera is the fastest sedan on the Nurburgring.
The Ferrari-derived 2.9-liter twin-turbo V6 of the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio enabled the Italian sedan to set a lap of 7 minutes and 39 seconds. That’s 13 seconds faster than the BMW M4. Heck, that’s marginally faster than the McLaren-Mercedes SLR and the Lamborghini Murcielago LP640.
By comparison, the larger and heavier 2017 Porsche Panamera stretches the legs of a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8, an all-new powerplant with 550 PS (542 horsepower) and 770 Nm (568 lb-ft) of torque available from 1,960 to 6,800 rpm. That torque band is undoubtedly bonkers.
What else should we be looking forward to from the new Panamera? Well, it’s going to look great, as in much better than the first generation does. Secondly, it will be a festival of performance. Here's a taste of what’s cooking: “Launch Control, rear axle steering and sports exhaust system - these racing features are available in the more powerful and more efficient new models. With the new Panamera, we once again show that we have the courage to change. You can tell by just looking at it. The silhouette and design language are more Porsche than ever. Like a sprinter in the starting blocks, it is just waiting to show exactly what it is capable of.”
I’m surely looking forward to the full-length video of the record lap around the Nurburgring Nordschleife. But until that moment comes, do please watch the second video in this story about the all-new Panamera to see the similarly all-new Porsche Panamera Shooting Brake do its thing around the grueling Green Hell.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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