Yahoo Autos Porsche Probably Has an Even-Faster Panamera Hidden Up Its Sleeve
When Porsche unveiled the redesigned Panamera, the big news-other than its more-attractive design-was that it had already set a Nurburgring lap record for sedans. With a time of 7 minutes and 38 seconds, it beat the Alfa Romeo Giulia QV's time by a second. That's certainly quick, but we actually think there's an even-faster Panamera coming.
That's because back in May, Gernot Dollner, the man in charge of the new Panamera, made the claim that it would beat the old Carrera GT's lap time. And the Carrera GT last lapped the Nurburgring in 7 minutes and 28 seconds. That's a full 10 seconds quicker than the Panamera Turbo.
So unless Porsche was really sandbagging on its record-setting lap just so it could destroy its own record in a few months, that leaves us with two possibilities-either Dollner was wrong, or he wasn't referring to the Panamera Turbo.
If he'd made that claim a year ago, that would have been early enough in the development cycle for the car to have simply not lived up to expectations. But a month before the reveal? At that point, he knew exactly what the car was capable of.
What makes more sense is that there's a quicker version of the Panamera coming, and we're not talking about a Panamera Turbo S. We're talking about a 918-inspired performance hybrid, likely called the Panamera Turbo S Hybrid.
That's the word coming from Motor Trend. This much-faster version of the Panamera was reportedly described as "a 918 with a back seat," and it's claiming an expected output of around 700 horsepower and 800 lb.-ft. of torque. Motor Trend didn't name a source, but assuming that's right, you can expect the Panamera Turbo S Hybrid to be brutally fast.
Will it be enough to drop the Panamera's lap time a full 10 seconds? Assuming Dollner wasn't wrong, apparently so.
