Porsche Panamera Turbo

– Los Angeles, California

I know I’m going to get a ton of hate mail for the title of this review, but damnit, I stand by that statement. Hunkered down in Sport Plus mode, barreling down Angeles Crest Highway north of Los Angeles, I’m convinced the car I’m driving is a four-door Porsche 911. There is a lightness and a tactility and a balance in this car that is unmistakably the sort of stuff you feel in great Porsche sports cars.

But don’t just take my word for it, ask the group of classic 911 owners I’m driving with, some of whom are struggling to keep up on the long stretches of back-and-forth S-curves that make up this fantastic portion of California’s Highway 2. Even as the group pulls into a turnout for photos and a coffee break, the 911 owners surround the Panamera with curiosity and admiration. Or maybe they just wanted to see how silly the wing looks when it opens.

Respect from other enthusiasts and a motoring experience that leaves me smiling days after my test drive? That’s Porsche stuff, alright. That’s the new Panamera Turbo.

Pros

Perfect powertrain. Porsche purists will undoubtedly bitch about the lack of a flat-six engine, not to mention the fact that the mill is mounted in the front of the car, but to them I very politely say: shut up. It’s 2017. Porsches have engines in the front – big, eight-cylinder, biturbocharged engines that make 550 horsepower, 567 pound-feet of torque, and allow this hefty, all-wheel-drive hatchback to rocket to 60 miles per hour in...