Porsche Taycan Turbo GT 2024 review

If standard Porsche Taycan range is not strong enough for you, the Germans now have a new solution in Porsche Taycan Turbo GT 2024.

This is arguably the car no one asked for but most would want after a quick drive. That’s what happens when the brief for engineers is “make it happen as fast as possible”.

It will go faster around the world-famous Laguna Seca circuit than the all-new 992 generation 911 GT3 RS. It can complete the 20.8km Nürburgring Nordschleife in just 7 minutes and 55 seconds, 26 seconds faster than the previous Taycan Turbo S, 2.5 seconds faster than the Taycan Turbo S. Plaid Tesla Model Sand most impressively, it’s only about 3.0 seconds slower than the all-electric vehicle record held by the $3.5 million Rimac Nevara supercar.

That’s a very complicated way to tell you, that is Damned quickly – if you want to know what it really feels like, watch the video below.

We hear car companies talk endlessly about cost efficiency, economies of scale and all the buzzwords that get accountants excited, but the Turbo GT is the opposite of all of those things. there.

It’s a car that really wanted to be a two-door long coupe but the accountants said no. So the engineers said ‘it’s okay, we’ll just take the rear seats out!’ and while everyone thought they were joking, they actually were.

That’s right, the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT can be optioned (for free!) with The Weissach package adds a fixed wing, more carbon and loses the two rear seats.

This would have to be the world’s first four-door electric two-seater and – let’s be honest – it makes absolutely no sense. That’s why we love it.

In an ideal world, Porsche would have re-engineered the chassis into a two-door and it would have been an instant icon, but the cost of refitting and re-testing the car for such a small customer base made that becomes impossible.

If you’re thinking about this car from the perspective that it will be used practically every day or whatever you want to tell yourself to justify the $416,600 price tag (think closer to $500k la with a few options and costs along the way), you’re looking at it wrong.

This is a car that sits among a collection of other cars. It’s the kind of car people buy so they can go down to the garage and say to a friend: ‘go ahead, open the back door’.

It’s also the kind of car that can teach you a lot about physics. Although it still weighs 2234kg (with Weissach package), it is extremely fast, able to reach speeds of 100km/h like a modern Formula 1 car.

To get a few extra milliseconds of speed, Porsche has the option of making the battery pack a little smaller… or removing a lot of it to reduce weight by about 70kg.

Given that creating a specific battery just for the Turbo GT would have caused the accountants to cancel the project and so opting for the Weissach package not only removed the already mentioned rear seats but also the clock analog, floor mats. (available as a no-cost option), a Bose sound system and an electrically opening charging port.

Essentially, Porsche will get rid of a lot of stuff and – graciously – doesn’t charge for the process. Power and torque figures are unchanged between the standard and Weissach versions of the Taycan.

The lighter model’s range is slightly better at 538-555km, compared to 528-554km for the more practical four-seat version. You can Read our standard Taycan review to see all the things Porsche has done to improve cooling and battery charging.

Those aside, the Turbo GT offers the best experience from the driver’s seat on a long stretch of road or track. Porsche took us to a racetrack on the outskirts of Sevilla in Spain, where we were subjected to endless laps and acceleration.

It’s one thing to tell you it will do 0-100 km/h in 2.2 seconds, but that’s another story altogether. feel It. So to continue reaching 200km/h in 6.4 seconds is completely absurd (you have to watch the video above).

In fact, when we timed our run on video, the speed was up to 200km/h faster than the published figure (a fairly typical Porsche figure). This helps the car accelerate from 0-100 km/h and 0-200 km/h faster than the previous version. Ferrari SF90probably the fastest modern supercar on the planet – you’ll need to get into supercar territory to match those acceleration figures.

Compared to the Bugatti Chiron, the Taycan Turbo GT with the Weissach package is 0.1 second faster at 100 km/h but about 1 second slower at 200 km/h. While we doubt the official figures for both Bugatti and Porsche in this case (in reverse)… just watch this space, because we might have to test this one.

The problem for the Taycan is no longer power but traction. Therefore, Pirelli has developed a tire specifically for the Taycan Turbo GT on the Trofeo RS. This tire is the same as the qualifying tire, but the Italian tire maker claims it will last much longer than a tire with a similar specification – think Michelin Cup 2R. Given the abuse we endured and how much it endured, it’s hard to disagree.

It cannot be emphasized enough that this is not an everyday car. It needs to be treated with the same attitude as the GT3 RS, both in terms of its capabilities and its impracticality. If you want to extract these crazy performance numbers, you need to be prepared.

On the track, we were amazed at how fast the car could reach mid-turn. It doesn’t inspire you with nearly the confidence you get from the brand’s other road-going GT cars, but somehow it holds on for dear life. This explains why it can be faster than the GT3 RS on some tracks.

We pushed and pushed some more, the tires screaming but still holding tight. When the steering wheel starts to relax, the way it can accelerate is really unnatural. It starts to make people believe and you can get out pretty quickly if you don’t pay attention to the pace.

That said, this Taycan needs some additional sensory input to deliver the right experience. Like the standard Taycan, the Turbo GT – more so than lower variants – needs performance sounds to let you understand how fast things are going.

There’s really no audible representation of speed, and one second you’re doing 80km/h coming out of a corner and the next second you’re braking at 200km/h going into the corner. next. We really feel the additional layers of sensory input to express its incredible performance would really enhance the driving experience.

However, you’ll eventually adapt to your new reality of insane speed, uncanny cornering ability and unrelenting reliability – something we can certainly attest to with dozens of laps after lap. round after round without needing to recharge or cool down.

There’s certainly a world out there where track warriors will start taking down these internal combustion engines; and though at the outset they might be driven out with pitchforks, the faster they went the more they prevailed over the daredevils.

In some ways, driving the Taycan Turbo GT fast is easier for the average person than a car with comparable performance with an actual internal combustion engine.

There’s very little loss from momentum (due to the instantaneous nature of its electric motor) so you can change your line to be safer, reduce your cornering speed and then put much more emphasis on exit speed.

There’s a lot to discover about the Turbo GT so we’re looking forward to driving it on Australian roads when it arrives later this year.

For now, though, if you’ve been waiting to buy a performance EV to join your stable of (adorable) fossil-fuel-burning dinosaurs, there’s no other option in this price bracket – this is it. …and it’s truly excellent.

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