When someone mentions a Grand Touring adventure style car, the mind immediately conjures something large and British like a big Jag or an Aston Martin DB-something. For this video, DriveTribe’s Henry Catchpole wanted to test a traditional GT car, in this case, represented by Aston Martin’s DB11, against a more sports-car based GT car like the McLaren 570GT, and Porsche’s super-saloon Panamera Turbo. The goal here is to see if a non-traditional GT car is perhaps better suited to the task of long-distance comfort driving than the ones we normally associate with the task. In short, do you want a comfy sports car, a sporty comfort car, or a fast sedan?
While I won’t give away the end result of the comparison, it is interesting to note that Catchpole commends the large and hefty brute of a Panamera Turbo on having superior steering feel and “turn-in is sharper than the McLaren’s as well“. With 568 lb-ft of torque on tap, the Porsche’s four-liter twin-turbo V8 provides a properly Grand Touring fluid and smooth shove, and could easily cruise for hours on end at triple digit speeds if needed. Not only that, but the Panamera is also the quickest of the three from 0-60. So Porsche’s big sedan is quicker than a traditional GT car, faster than a traditional GT car, has better steering than a traditional GT car, and is more comfortable for four full-sized adults than a traditional GT car.
Just because it has four doors doesn’t mean the Panamera isn’t a Grand Touring masterpiece. Leave it to Porsche to beat the traditionally superior GT car-building Brits at their own game. The new Panamera Turbo is a non-traditional continental cruiser that can hold everything you might need for a weekend in the Alps or for a trip to NorCal wine country, from Texas.