Porsche unveils the Panamera Sport Turismo in Paris

There was a collective sigh of relief, earlier this evening, when Porsche took the wraps off the new Shooting Brake adaptation of the company’s Panamera sports saloon.

As with the Cayenne, Porsche’s venture into the sports saloon sector has not been without its critics – love it or loathe it (and it seems most opt for the latter) the Panamera exhibits an awkwardness at the rear end which looks like Porsche were trying to give it a 911-esque profile, where such a profile ended up looking contrived.

As an up-market sporting estate (or shooting brake), gone is the pretence of a 911-saloon, to be replaced with a unique identity that leaves us wondering why Porsche didn’t release it this way in the first place.

Porsche’s press release contains a significant amount of PR fluff that serves little purpose other than to distract from the meaningful details – “The Panamera Sport Turismo concept car shows how amazingly intelligent and efficient drive technology might look in the design language of tomorrow” – need I go on? Don’t worry, I’ll spare you from the rest of their rambling prose.

Suffice it to say, the show car is a plug-in hybrid based on a second-generation Panamera platform. This means we’re unlikely to see the Panamera Sport Turismo for another 3-4 years at the earliest.

The concept car is 1,990 mm wide, 1,401 mm in height and 4,950 mm long, which is nigh on identical to today’s Panamera saloon (1931mm x 1418mm x 4970mm).

You’ll notice the lack of door mirrors, in their place the Sport Turismo has two cameras mounted in the side air outlets whose images are shown on the displays in the cockpit. The wheels feature hub locks, signifying the motorsport origins of every Porsche and an adaptive carbon rear spoiler adds the finishing touch to car’s roof, while adding further downforce.

“e-hybrid” stands for the plug-in hybrid technology developed by Porsche. The concept features a new version of this powerplant producing around twice as much power (94bhp) as is available in current Porsche hybrids.

The petrol engine used is the supercharged three-litre V6 engine from the Panamera S Hybrid and Cayenne S Hybrid, which produces 328bhp. Combined with the electric motor, the hybrid Panamera Sport Turismo is capable of accelerating from zero to 62mph in less than 6.0 seconds.

The Panamera Sport Turismo is designed to be driven in pure electric mode up to a speed of 81mph, with a range of around 18.6 miles, and as you’d expect of a hybrid concept it is capable of 80.7mpg and CO2 emissions of less than 82 g/km.

Unlike the hybrid models currently in production, the Panamera Sport Turismo prioritises all-electric driving as its default operating mode, but the driver may deactivate this by pressing a special button on the steering wheel. In addition, when the car is being operated in hybrid mode the driver can select the e-charge mode by pressing the steering wheel button to intensify charging of the high-voltage lithium-ion battery.

While stationary the concept’s batteries can be externally charged in as little as 2.5 hours.

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