Porsche Takes It up a Notch with the Panamera Turbo Sport Turismo

Presenting a thrilling alternative to luxury SUVs and crossovers, Porsche’s masterful Panamera sport sedan’s latest Turbo Sport Turismo offers unbridled signature performance for those who crave more space.

Don’t call it a wagon. For the 2018 Porsche Panamera Turbo Sport Turismo, the elegant term “shooting brake” is more apt. Even if you could call it that, it’d be a wagon equipped with a 550-horsepower 4-liter twin-turbo V-8 that jacks the vehicle from 0 to 60 mph in 3.6 seconds and sports a slick eight-speed PDK double clutch.

While the extended body design allows for a 4+1 seating layout, full-time AWD and tons of storage space in back with a wider cargo opening and lower loading edge than ever, from the driver’s seat you’re getting all the performance and thrills you’d expect from the sport sedan version of the Panamera Turbo. They’re specs that could place this car on a racetrack without irony: top speed, 188 mph; quarter-mile, 12 seconds. Based on the exterior and interior attention to detail, this is a true Porsche through and through. From $154,000, 7101 N. Lincoln Ave., Lincolnwood, loeberporsche.com

In the Details

• Optional upgraded brakes, with bold-colored calipers, increase stopping power for the thrumming twin-turbo V-8 and the car’s additional length and weight.

• For the first time ever in a Panamera, Porsche offers a 4+1 seat layout (adding a third seat belt in the second row), though customers can still choose the 2+2 layout with bucket seats in the front and bucket-style seats in the rear.

• A central analog tachometer, as always, proudly identifies this vehicle as a member of the Porsche stable.