Porsche Panamera GTS First Test: Introducing the Sport *Limousine*

Sport limousine. It sounds a complete contradiction in terms: a car that’s big and fast and luxurious, yet also punchy and nimble and fun to drive. But Porsche’s Panamera GTS squares that circle. It gives you all the luxury you’d expect from the company’s flagship four-door, along with a sporty drive experience that, on a challenging mountain road, will leave you whooping with delight.

With a base price of $130,650, the GTS sits mid-pack in the 21-model Panamera lineup that ranges from the $88,550 entry-level car with the 330-hp turbocharged V-6 under the hood and rear-wheel drive to the range-topping $199,450 Turbo S E-Hybrid Executive with its 677-hp hybrid powertrain, stretched wheelbase, and all-wheel drive.

The GTS gets a 453-hp, 457-lb-ft version of Porsche’s versatile 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8, plus all-wheel drive, Porsche’s Sport Chrono system, and PASM suspension with slightly stiffer damper rates and a lower ride height than regular Panameras. Other standard features include satin black-finished 20-inch wheels, a sport exhaust, and 18-way adaptive sport seats. Plus, of course, GTS badging, in black.

GTS. This Panamera looks the part and sounds the part when you switch the exhaust to Sport mode. It acts the part, too, eliciting a heartfelt “Whoaaa!” from road test editor Chris Walton after a 5,000-rpm launch that instigated a smidgen of front wheelspin en route to 60 mph in 3.3 seconds and an 11.6-second quarter mile at 114.6 mph. Some context: This 4,669-pound Porsche was just a tenth of a second slower to 60 than the head-banging 630-hp Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S four-door we tested last year, and it recorded an identical quarter-mile time, though the 40 percent more powerful Mercedes was almost 4 mph faster through the traps.

Yes, it’s fast, but where the Panamera GTS impresses most, on first acquaintance, is how civilized it feels cruising on the freeway and mooching around town at low speeds. Where the tightly sprung four-door AMG GT crashes and thumps over broken tarmac with the violence of a race car that’s run wide of the track, there’s a sense of magic carpet to the Panamera GTS’ ride. The triple-chamber air suspension provides impressive rolling ride comfort, and impact harshness is well suppressed, as is the roar from the aggressively treaded low-profile tires.

Where this car will steal your heart, however, is on your favorite canyon road, especially when equipped, as our tester was, with the optional rear-wheel steering ($1,620), Porsche Torque Vectoring Plus ($5,000), and Porsche’s fabulous PCCB carbon-ceramic brakes ($8,970). Quite simply, you won’t believe just how quick this big Porsche is point to point, regardless of how many corners there are in between. Control weights—steering and braking—are damn near perfect, their responses wonderfully linear, the rear-wheel steering and torque vectoring systems deftly enhancing turn-in response and midcorner balance, the carbon-ceramic brakes shrugging off huge thermal spikes when you want to wash off speed in a hurry. The twin-turbo V-8 revs easily to 6,800 rpm, but its happy place is from 3,000 to 6,000 rpm, where it delivers a ton of midrange grunt that can be precisely adjusted via the throttle, for the quick and responsive eight-speed dual-clutch transmission to exploit.

There are limousines that pretend to be sports cars. The Panamera GTS is a limousine that’s a genuine sports car, the four doors and four seats delivering bonus practicality and usability. Even though the Sport Chrono software allows you to switch the suspension and powertrain from Comfort through Sport and Sport+ modes, there’s no Jekyll and Hyde transformation from lush to lash. Put simply, the harder you drive the Panamera GTS, the more it gives back to you, layers of accessibility peeling back to reveal ever deeper levels of competence and engagement.

I’ll have to wait until the statute of limitations expires to go into detail, but this big Porsche was able to hunt down a well-driven Shelby GT500 on one of my favorite mountain roads. It feels so much lighter on its feet than a Mercedes-AMG S 63 or a Bentley Flying Spur; in terms of raw dynamic ability, the ferocious, brittle, edgy Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S four-door comes closest, but the Panamera GTS rides way better in every mode, and it’s quieter everywhere and just as agile through the twisties. There’s a fluidity, a maturity about the way the Porsche goes down the road that is utterly remarkable. There is no fast luxury four-door like it.

Next to the glittery swagger of a $200,000-plus Flying Spur (which shares much of its platform architecture with the Porsche) or the imperious presence of an S 63, the Porsche Panamera GTS is a somewhat understated ride. But even equipped as our tester—which also came with the $2,610 Premium Package, which includes a Bose audio system, and the $780 soft-close doors, bringing the total price to $150,460, or within a couple grand of the Mercedes’ base price—the Panamera GTS is the car for those who simply want the best of both worlds: luxury and sport.

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