Porsche Panamera 4 E-Hybrid Sport Turismo

Paul Beard drives Porsches performance hybrid Panamera and finds it sets a high precedent for future Porsche electric vehicles.

- Paul Beard

For the last 70 years, Porsche have produced some of the most iconic, sought after cars ever made. They are stylish, powerful, fast and normally, pretty expensive too. The cars that roll out of the Zuffenhausen factory in Stuttgart, Germany are renowned for their quality, reliability and longevity and enjoyed by Porschephiles the world over. In recent years, the company has joined the race to electrify and there have been hybrid variants of the Cayenne SUV for a number of years. More recently, Porsche have begun to produce hybrid versions of their luxury four door grand tourer, the Panamera and it is this model that I shall be concentrating on in this feature.

Other auto makers produce cars that can rival this car, which by the way is the Sport Turismo shooting brake version with a plug-in hybrid setup, but there is something very special about getting behind the wheel of a Porsche – the history, the racing pedigree, the quality all combine in your mind when you see one up close and ultimately when you drive it. This car’s proportions are beautifully balanced and you get four doors and a tailgate to boot. It sits quite low on those imposing 21 inch wheels and ultra low profile tyres and with that low roofline and sloping back end it looks every inch the sports grand tourer it’s designed to be. This is a big car though, long and wide, especially noticeable in narrow streets; but in its defence, it can carry four people in comfort, five at a pinch – and their luggage.

There certainly isn’t any quibble about the power of this car. Under that long sculpted bonnet lies a V6 petrol engine that with the aid of an electric motor pushes out a massive combined 460hp and an earth shattering 700Nm of torque. No wonder then that this Porsche, despite its size will rocket you to sixty miles per hour in 4.5 seconds and then keep going and going, topping out at 170mph (where speed limits allow).