Pooch-preferred Porsche revealed

Not quite the most practical choice for that Saturday morning run to Bunnings, but still the Taycan more suited to slightly adventurous lifestylers.

IN Porsche-speak, ‘it’s a cross utility vehicle’ – in the language of the street, it’s a four-wheel-drive soft-roading version of the make’s fully electric car with body cladding.

The Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo finally fully revealed overnight (the video’s here to see) could also be called a schmantzy lifted station wagon, given it also delivered to same design definition that dictates the look of your everyday family hauler.

It’s not quite a full-blown alternate to the large Cayenne sports utility that saved the brand’s bacon back in the day, but will probably become attractive to those among that car’s supporter base who are savvy enough to recognise that this is an excellent time to abandon that hugely proliferate, big drinking dinosaur for something much more on trend. 

Basically, if you’re looking for a Porsche that offers some level of practicality, is better-shaped for carting pooches, has some degree of off-seal ability (that’s the ‘Cross’ part) but will also assuage environmental sensitivities, then here it is.

 Well, not quite ‘here’ as in ‘here in New Zealand.’ The make’s New Zealand distributor expects arrival in the fourth quarter, with three derivatives represented. Though full pricing detail has yet to be shared, the car will start at $194,900, marketing manager Stefanie McCallum said today.

The cheapest Taycan here at the moment is the entry rear-drive, which costs $173,900 but has no direct equivalent in the Cross Touring line (and those models are all AWD), and the most expensive, the Turbo S, is a $366,900 hit.

Porsche has developed the Cross Turismo in Taycan 4, 4S, Turbo and Turbo S variants. McCallum indicated today that the 4 Cross, 4S Cross and Turbo Cross are incoming.

All versions are fitted with the make’s 93.4kWh Performance Battery Plus.

The car is based on the same J1 platform as the sedan, but bolstering its off-road credentials and all-round versatility, the Cross Turismo is only available with four-wheel drive.

They also achieve Porsche Active Suspension Management with three-chamber adaptive air suspension. With an optional Off-Road Package, the car’s ride height can be raised by a further 10mm for a total of 30mm of extra ground clearance compared with the Taycan sedan.

There’s also a Gravel driving mode for Porsche’s latest EV, which alters the chassis, stability control and throttle calibration for use on loose surfaces, boosting ability off-road.

Off-road design elements include new wheel arch trims, different lower aprons at the front and rear, and side sills.

The higher roofline delivers 47mm more headroom in the back than a regular Taycan offers. The big hatchback reveals up to 446 litres of boot space with the seats up, and a maximum of 1212 litres with them folded down.

The design draws heavily from the Mission E Cross Turismo Concept of 2018 with the design brief being to “offer a little bit more space, a little more flexibility and versatility” than a regular Taycan, according to model line chief Stefan Weckbach. He reckons it is a “a car that is perfect for both an urban environment and the countryside.”

Fair dues to Porsche. While a whole heap more time was spent at the Nurburgring and Hockenheim racetracks as well as the Nardo test track, it was also thrown into some seriously testing off-seal conditions.

Which means, in respect to off-road aptitude? “The Cross Turismo has to be capable of high performance on the race track and must also be able to handle scree, mud and gravel,” Weckbach said.

“The Cross Turismo is not a hardcore off-road vehicle, but specialises in unpaved and dirt roads. It’s like a type of Swiss army knife on up to 21-inch wheels.”

From the front it has the same quad light signature, thin wide lower grille and narrow front fascia as a road-bound Taycan but clearly stands taller. In silhouette, the design path heads in a different dsirection; theroofline and silhouette are more strongly reminiscent of the Panamera Sport Turismo, albeit with chunkier rear haunches.

The Taycan 4 Cross Turismo offers around 280kW, with overboost of 350kW during launch control starts for a 0-100kmh time of 5.1 seconds. Official range stands at 455km, according to Porsche.

Going to the Taycan 4S Cross Turismo sees power climb to 360kW, with up to 420kW available on overboost to shave one full second from the base model’s 0-100kmh time.

The Taycan Turbo Cross Turismo’s performance takes another significant leap on, with up to 500kW on overboost for a 0-100kmh time of 3.3 seconds and up to 482km of range possible. Most of the time Turbo produces 460kW.

The top-spec Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo boasts 560kW with overboost and launch control engaged. It means a 0-100kmh sprint time of just 2.9 seconds; it produces the same level of power as the standard Turbo otherwise, with an official range claim of up to 420km.

NZ fast tracking for bonkers GT3

Post-June arrival for 911 racer for the road.

 THREE hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars will buy you the car – the talent required to extract the best it has to give is presumably priceless.

Those Kiwis imagining they are up to the challenge of the new 911 GT3, which Porsche has just unveiled to the world, have just a few months to limber up; deliveries are anticipated to begin in the second half of 2021.

What’s so special? If you have to ask, you know nothing about this type. Basically, though, it comes down to this: Often, the adage 'race car for the road' is a descriptive that kind stretches the reality. Except, apparently, when it comes to the 992 GT3. According to one overseas’ journalist who has experienced this new model, it “feels like that hackneyed old adage has never been more apt.”

Because? Primarily, it’s down to the GT3's free-revving, naturally aspirated 4.0-litre flat-six engine being shared, 'practically unchanged' in Porsche's own words, with the 911 GT3 Cup competition car.

And is based on the drivetrain found in the 911 GT3 R, another motorsport icon. So, effectively, this road car has the beating heart of a full-on racer.

Said 4.0-litre lump delivers 375kW, an increase of 7.5kW from the previous GT3 and matching the ultra-rare 991 Speedster. I has a top speed of 320kmh in full old-school manual form, or 318kmh with the optional dual-clutch PDK. Either way, it accelerates from 0-100 kmh in 3.4 seconds and is faster than the previous GT3.

That has allowed it to do a lap of the 20.8km Nürburgring Nordschleife in 6:59.927s in the hands of development driver Lars Kern; it can do the shorter 20.6km track used as the previous benchmark in 6:55.2s. So either way it's a 'sub-seven' car. When the GT3 first appeared back in 1999 as the 3.6-litre 996 variant with 268kW, it was a 'sub-eight' vehicle at the Nürburgring and that was in the hands of the legendary Walter Röhrl. That's progress for you.

It's not just the mighty engine that the Porsche 911 GT3 takes from competition vehicles, but much of its aerodynamic and chassis make-up, too. It has double-wishbone front suspension, for instance, while that distinctive rear wing has a swan-neck arrangement for the supports. Both it and the rear diffuser originate from the 911 RSR.

Overall, the aerodynamics are said to offer higher levels of downforce than the old GT3, all without noticeably increasing the coefficient of drag. The downforce can be increased even further if you (manually) adjust the rear wing and diffuser elements, to provide higher cornering speeds on track.

The bodywork is wider than the old 991 GT3's shell, while the 992 also runs on larger, forged alloys than its predecessor and it has 'additional technical features' too. The manual tips the scales at just 1418kg, while the PDK is not far behind at 1435kg. This trim figure is achieved by the deployment of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) for the front bonnet, as well as thinner glass in the windows, 'optimised' brake discs and those aforementioned wheels being forged.

Even the cover for the rear-seat compartment (the GT3 is a two-seater, not a two plus two) is designed down to the merest gram, while a full sports exhaust system with infinitely electrically adjustable flaps shaves another 10kg from the Porsche's mass.

Despite the exhaust, the GT3 nevertheless manages to conform to the Euro 6d-TEMP-EVAP-ISC emissions standard, although 283-304g/km of CO2 and fuel economy of between 13.1-12.9 litres/100km is fooling nobody in terms of the environmental gains.

Oh yes, and about that. Regardless that it has committed an electric future with the fully-battery Taycan and a plug-in hybrid Cayenne, Porsche has absolutely no intention of developing any level of electric-assistance for the 911. When fossil fuels become too rare, the hope is it will be sustained by man-made alternates.

On that note, Porsche is so serious about synthetic fuels it is in partnerships with energy firms Siemens Energy, AME and Enel and the Chilean petroleum company ENAP, with the ambition of  developing a plant for the commercial production of such go-juice on an industrial scale. The first stage, called Haru Oni, is set to use southern Chile’s “excellent” wind conditions to produce synthetic fuel, aka e-fuel, with the aid of wind power.

The plant is set to be in operation by 2022, and will ramp up to producing 55 million litres of synthetic fuel by 2024, and roughly 10 times that amount by 2026. Porsche CEO Oliver Blume has outlined the motive for the project to Britain’s Autocar magazine, saying: “Their advantages lie in their ease of application: e-fuels can be used in combustion engines and plug-in hybrids, and can make use of the existing network of filling stations.”

Back to this car. The cockpit takes its design themes from the regular 992, but there's a new feature called the Track Screen. In this setting, at the touch of a button, then the 911 GT3's two digital displays that sit either side of the central rev counter (which reads to 10,000rpm) switch to showing information such as tyre pressures, oil pressure, oil temperature, fuel levels and water temperature, all of which Porsche says are essential when driving fast on circuit.

There's also a visual gearshift assistant, with coloured bars to the left and right of the rev counter, and a shift light that comes, once again, straight from the racetrack.

The announced price for NZ is just for a standard car. Who wants that, right? There are numerous individualisation options from the Exclusive Manufaktur range.

These include a lightweight roof made of exposed carbon fibre, door mirror tops also rendered in carbon, darkened LED Matrix main headlights and matching Exclusive Design rear lights that reduce the red on display when they're not illuminated. Any model with black alloy wheels can have a pinstripe around the rim of the alloys in either Guards Red or Shark Blue. The rev counter, the Sport Chrono dash-top stopwatch, the seatbelts and the trim strips can all be finished in the same colour as the body, or in another shade of the owner's choice. There's even a matching watch, from Porsche Design, exclusively for those buying the car.

NZ quick to plug into rear-drive Taycan

New model will launch in March; $30k cheaper than current entry variant

ACCEPTING a Porsche Taycan in a rear-drive format has potential to bring a $30,000 saving on the previous entry edition.

The drivetrain layout, which debuted last June but was then restricted to cars sold in China, has been touted internationally as a pathway to presenting the car in a more cost-effective format.

That strategy expresses coherently here, where the drivetrain represents in a new entry configuration, simply called Taycan.

In kicking in at $173,900, this model presents a $30,000 saving over the least costly edition at the moment, the 4S that released last June.

Other versions of Taycan sold in NZ are the Turbo and Turbo S for $289,900 and $366,900. These remain purely with all-wheel-drive.

The new derivative is set to arrive in March, a timeframe that suggest NZ could stand as just the second right-hand-drive market after the United Kingdom.  

Delivery to Australia has yet to be confirmed, but media there are suggesting it might not occur until year-end, with Porsche there concentrating on settling in the all-wheel-drive variants that have just gone on sale there. 

The rear-drive configuration is as per the China market models. The car features a single electric motor on the rear axle, and offering a choice of two lithium-ion batteries: the 79.2kWh 'base' Performance Battery, and the 93.4kWh Performance Battery Plus. 

Power is rated at 240kW with the smaller battery, with an onboard overboost mode activated through Launch Control upping the output to 300kW – on par with the quoted Chinese figure.

With the larger 93.4kWh pack, outputs increase to 280kW without overboost and to 350kW with it.

Porsche claims range figures on Europe's WLTP test cycle of 431km and 484km for the 79.2kWh and 93.4kWh packs respectively – the latter figure the highest range offered by any Taycan model to date.

The 800-volt electrical architecture offered by higher grade models carries over to the new entry model, with maximum DC fast-charging rates pegged at 225kW and 270kW for the small and large batteries respectively. 

Regardless of battery choice, the rear-drive knocks off 0-100kmh in in 5.4 seconds, towards a top speed of 230kmh. The two-speed rear-axle transmission fitted to all-paw Taycans is standard on the new model.

Core elements of the Taycan cockpit design remain unaltered in the not-so-pauper entry car, including a large curved digital instrument cluster and a central 10.9-inch infotainment touchscreen. Eight-way power-adjustable front 'comfort' seats trimmed in part-leather are standard.

The rear-wheel-drive variant, in pre-production guise, was the model selected to break the record for the world's longest continuous electric vehicle drift, with 210 laps around a 200-metre skidpad – so, 42.1km clocked - recorded in late November, 2020. It was only stopped by an exhausted battery.

Amazing ACS is a desert stormer reprised

Singer’s homage to famous Porsche rally raid machine is just as monstrous.

Homage to history …. the Singer ACS takes inspiration from Porsche’s incredible 959 (below), a Group B rally machine that made huge imprint in the Paris-Dakar rallies in the 1980s.

PICTURE this: A Porsche 911 with extensive off-road modifications and a highly-tuned engine banging out mammoth horsepower, capable of surviving in the toughest terrain.

The brand did exactly that back in the 1980s, when creating the berserk 959, a car originally developed as a Group B world rally championship car – which, when that was kyboshed, proved particularly useful in hard-out long-distance desert racing ‘raids’, particularly the Paris-Dakar in the days when it was actually that. The 959 subsequently also rendered in a limited-run road car form and is now a highly-prized collectible. 

Now California-based Singer has revealed its latest creations: a pair of all-terrain models offering a 2021 interpretation of the famous factory model. 

The Singer ACS (which stands for All-terrain Competition Study) consists of a pair of rally-prepped machines that take inspiration from the 959 as well as the 911 SC/RS that Porsche also rallied. 

Commissioned by one of Singer’s long-term clients, ACS has been co-developed in the United Kingdom by Richard Tuthill, whose operation specialises in motorsport and rally preparation for classic Porsches.

Last year, Tuthill Porsche constructed the car that won the 2019 East African Safari Classic - a 5000km event that runs through Kenya and Tanzania. Back in the 1980s, Tuthill partnered with Prodrive to develop the original World Rally-prepped 911 SC/RS. 

Two cars have been built: the first, white car seen today is adapted for “high-speed desert rallying” while a second, lower-slung, car is designed for tarmac rallying.

Both remind that, while is Singer is often touted as a restoration specialist, it really often goes well beyond that role and reaches well into total re-engineering. 

The ACS cars are exemplars of that. AS is almost always the case qwith Singers, the starting point is a 1990 964-generation 911, which is reskinned in a carbon fibre body.

However, as the wild looks suggest, these are unique to the ACS and are designed for two main purposes, says British website AutoExpress, which has gained access to the project.

The on-line edition says the body rework takes into account the increased cooling demands required in harsh off-road environments. It allow easy access to important mechanical components which may need to be examined during service stops. As a result, the entire front and rear sections both open up like huge clamshells. 

The panels wrap around an extensively reinforced monocoque, and one which accommodates a significantly raised ride height. Bumpers front and rear are simple bars, which enable even greater approach and departure angles.

Tough rally-spec suspension is then attached to the bulked-up chassis. Twin dampers - each five-way adjustable - are mounted at all four corners, in order to control the shocks endured by the new long-travel suspension. Contact to the ground is through chunky BF-Goodrich all-terrain tyres, wrapped around 8x16” forged aluminium wheels. Brakes discs are steel, and are gripped by four piston calipers all round.

Porsche’s ‘Metzger’ flat six remains Singer’s start point for the engine, but its configuration here is new. Capacity is 3.6-litres, but it’s boosted by a pair of intercooler-fed turbochargers. Total power can be adjusted based on the demands of the specific rally, but the new unit offers at least 355kW and 569Nm of torque. 

Drive is sent to all four wheels via front, centre and rear limited slip differentials, and a five-speed sequential dog-box, which allows the driver to shift up without lifting the throttle. The gears can be operated through either an extended gear lever on the transmission tunnel, or by steering wheel-mounted paddles.

Other modifications to the standard Singer formula include a long range fuel tank and two full size spare wheels. 

Inside, the ACS sports a much more contemporary appearance than Singer’s retro-inspired road cars, Auto Express says.

Accessed through shorter doors (a result of the significantly reinforced sill area) the cabin reveals a pared-back dashboard, constructed from carbon fibre. This houses a digital instrument panel in front of the driver, and a huge GPS race navigation system ahead of the passenger. 

 Many of the controls are housed on a unique steering wheel, while a huge hydraulic handbrake stands taller than the extended gear lever. Safety is provided by unique seats, harnesses and a roll cage - all certified by motorsport’s governing body, the FIA. Both driver and passenger benefit from their own in-built drinks system.

Price? No-one’s gone into that and likely as not, you’ll never know. Just settle on “a lot … and then some.”

Bamber and Hartley’s amazing hyper-racer – in your garage!

A car with a Kiwi motorsport connection is among a fleet of amazing design studies revealed by Porsche.

IMAGINE the sheer delicious madness of it – a road-legal version of the 330kmh-plus 919 Hybrid LMP1, the all-dominant force of recent international prototype sports car racing that Kiwis Brendon Hartley and Earl Bamber took to Le Mans victories and world endurance championship titles.

It could have happened.

The idea for a ‘919 Street’, the version of Porsche’s technology masterpiece you could have used every day is disclosed in a new book, ‘Porsche Unseen’, which reveals just that car as one of 15 radical concepts from 2005 to 2015 that never came to be.

A look in into the inner workings of a place normally completely off-limits to public scrutiny, the famous maker’s design studio – Style Porsche - in Weissach, Germany, also unwraps concept cars that were developed as a source of inspiration for the company’s designers.

As today’s images show, the ‘919 Street’ reached the same point as the other subjects of the book, a one-to-one clay scale model.

 The styling concept has the same dimensions and wheelbase as the racing car that debuted in 2014 then dominated the long-distance circuit racing scene for four years, claiming three consecutive world championships and three straight victories in the arduous Le Mans 24 Hours in France.

Conceivably it would have retained the racer’s radical V4 two-litre petrol engine and advanced hybrid drivetrains that took it to 330kmh in race trim but considerably faster still in the ultimate track lap record-beating ‘Evo’ trim, that Porsche created after the car retired from LMP1 at the end of 2017.

Unchanged mechanically to the racing model, but simply with aerodynamic refinements beyond those allowed for LMP1, the Evo often beat Formula One lap times.

Whanganui-born Bamber and two team-mates achieved the 919 Hybrid’s debut Le Mans victory, in 2015, and his pal from childhood and the NZ motorsport scene Hartley, from Palmerston North, was in a crew that snared victory in the car on the French circuit in 2017 (he then achieved his second Le Mans, this year with Toyota).

Bamber and Hartley also teamed to take the 2017 World Endurance Championship in the car, a second such time for Hartley, who’d also been in the crew that claimed the 2015 world title.

The 919 Street wasn’t the only concept fuelled by Porsche’s rich racing spirit; there were two others created under the ‘Living Legends’ mantle.

The 917 Living Legend (above) was crafted by designers in 2013 as a modern interpretation of the legendary race car that had the same numerical designation.

 This one was created to mark the brand returning to LMP1 with the 919, but was kept under wraps until spring 2019, when the maker released the first photos as a way to celebrate the 917 race car’s 50th anniversary.

 The concept proper was presented to the public for the first time in the ‘Colours of Speed’ exhibition at the Porsche Museum last year.

There’s also the 906 Living Legend study (above) from 2005. As the name suggests, the Porsche 906 street-legal racing car from 1966 served as inspiration for the proportions and body design of this vision of a super sports car. The red contrasting front bonnet and the layout of the headlights are in the style of the famous car that won the 1966 Targa Floria, a daunting road race in Sicily since discontinued on safety grounds, in the hands of privateers Willy Mairesse and Gerhard Muller.

 Another featured concept that was never to be that also has racing links is a battery-propelled passenger van.

The maker identifies that the inspiration for the Vision Renndienst, a family-friendly “space shuttle” rendered in 2018, was a far more utilitarian Volkswagen van, used as a support vehicle by the Porsche factory racing team decades ago.

Envisaged to carry up to six people, Porsche’s concept has streamlined surfaces, minimalist headlights, a sporty front fascia and a long sloping roof. Designers also installed five-spoke alloy wheels and a traditional Porsche rear end with a full-width light bar.