Instrumented Test
Few automobiles so accurately channel the concept of f#@k everyone as the 2014 Porsche Panamera Turbo S Executive. Like the 707-hp Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and the Mercedes-Benz G63 AMG, this Porsche’s extreme speed and incongruence with societal norms bestow upon owners a rarified and awesome offensiveness akin to, say, owning a strip club or being Bernie Ecclestone.
Let’s run down what takes the Panamera Turbo S Executive to that echelon.
There’s the sheer cost of the thing, which makes a perverse sort of sense given that the long-wheelbase Executive series was inserted into the Panamera lineup for 2014 (coinciding with a model-wide refresh) largely so that Porsche could charge more for a Panamera than ever before. In range-topping Turbo S guise, the Executive carries a suitably exclusive base price of $201,495. As they say, the devil is in the options, and extras floated our test car to $241,775.
Up next is gratuitous speed, provided here courtesy of a twin-turbocharged 4.8-liter V-8 shared with the regular-length Panamera Turbo S. The engine produces the same 570 horsepower and 590 lb-ft (increases of 50 and 22 over the Panamera Turbo), feeds it through Porsche’s seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, and then to all four wheels. Curiously, the S takes 0.2-second longer than the less-powerful Turbo Executive to hit 60 mph—it still completes the deed in 3.5 seconds—but by 100 mph, the S pulls ahead. It hits 150 mph a full second quicker and eventually stops accelerating at 192 mph.
The coup de grâce, of course, is that the Turbo S Executive makes no practical or logical sense. Standing apart in the world of long-wheelbase luxury sedans, the Turbo S Executive demands that its rear-seat occupants strap into two full-blown sport seats with body-hugging and suit-wrinkling bolsters. Coddling doesn’t factor into the equation. There are no massaging seats. The longer wheelbase serves only to help the Panamera resemble Quasimodo after spending time on a medieval stretching rack and to create a whole lot more space for rear passengers to flail about while the driver explores the car’s reserve of 1.01 g’s of grip and ability to stop from 70 mph in 146 feet.
The über-un-limo does all of this while braaap braaaaaaping antisocially from its quad exhaust outlets, the trick three-part rear wing folding, tilting, and unfolding as speeds vary. Launch control is entertaining. There’s no neck snapping or chest compression—the event is damped like you’d expect in something that’s 203.4 inches long and weighs 4638 pounds. The Porsche simply lists onto its rear tires and shuffles off like a steroidal Cinderella chasing a wheeled pumpkin. Is it any surprise we averaged 12 mpg?
A wise man would take his quarter-of-a-million bucks and spend it on a 911 and a Mercedes S550. The other guy, who we assume is Porsche’s target customer for this Panamera, doesn’t care if bystanders peg him as someone who bursts into dinner parties unannounced, pants-less, flipping two birds to the sky, and hollering for the hosts’ teenage daughter to come take a ride. Even when it wasn’t belching and farting around at a frenetic pace, the Porsche managed to piss people off. The cooling fans quit working during our test, so to avoid a total meltdown we had to nurse it back to our headquarters like a gigantic, traffic-clogging Prius, gingerly keeping it moving just fast enough to maintain airflow over the engine. The Turbo S even told us to shove it from its perch atop a flatbed, and we still loved it.
