What's this?
Mix together the brutal performance of something like a
Porsche 911 Turbo S with the effortless estate-car elan and moderate off-road capabilities of an
Audi A6 allroad, all while offering up ride comfort and rolling refinement that wouldn't shame a
Rolls-Royce Phantom, and then power the whole lot with a drivetrain as easy on the planet's environment as that in a
Renault Zoe, and what have you got? Well, surely what must be in the running for finally securing that mythical and formerly elusive automotive epithet, 'The Car Which Can Do Everything'.
Welcome to the Porsche Taycan Turbo Cross Turismo. It's an estate version of the majestic Taycan electric vehicle (EV), which has previously only been sold in four-door saloon form. But not for Stuttgart was simply offering a Taycan with a longer roofline and a more upright rear end; no, it went and made the EV wagon into a crossover, too. Now there are plenty of people for whom the c-word is an offensive piece of language, but we're hoping to convince you that this is a crossover of the highest merit possible. However, in simpler terms, what the Cross Turismo essentially does is takes the lifestyle estate formula and runs with it, only as a zero-emissions electric. So while it looks in the main like the obvious amalgamation of a regular four-door Taycan and a
Panamera Sport Turismo, it also has black cladding over its wheel arches and running along its sills, it possesses chunkier front and rear bumpers with silver under-guard protection, it sports a higher stance on the road (either 20- or 30mm, we'll explain the difference in a sec) and it gets access to its own bespoke designs of 20- and 21-inch alloys - the latter of which were fitted to our vehicle at a cost of £2,282. Frankly, it looks bloody magnificent. Paint it any colour you like, including the luscious Cherry metallic of our German-plated test machine, but the Taycan Cross Turismo is one of the finest-looking estates out there, in our opinion. We'd go for Mamba Green, though.
What looks like indecision on our part in the previous paragraph, with regards the ride height of the Cross Turismo, isn't actually anything of the sort, but rather Porsche offering the standard lifestyle wagon and then an optional £1,161 Off-Road Design Package that adds extra vanes to the bumpers and the side sills (to prevent stone-chip damage). This further gives you that additional 10mm of ride height to lift the Taycan estate the full 30mm higher than a regular saloon. Naturally, the Cross Turismo is not going to be able to traverse the roughest and most inhospitable terrain in the world, but with a unique Gravel mode amongst its drive select settings, it should certainly be more capable away from the tarmac than the saloon Taycans are.
Speaking of which, the new Cross Turismo is offered in a broadly similar hierarchy to the existing four Taycan models, but with some crucial differences. For instance, all Cross Turismos are fitted with Porsche Traction Management (PTM) all-wheel drive, so there is no
rear-wheel-drive variant as there is for the saloon. Also, all Cross Turismos use the 93.4kWh (83.7kWh net) lithium-ion battery pack, with no option for the smaller 79.2kWh unit which you can get in the Taycan and Taycan 4S cars. This means the electric estate's range runs Taycan 4 Cross Turismo (from £79,340), Taycan 4S Cross Turismo (from £87,820), Taycan Turbo Cross Turismo (from £116,950) and Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo (from £139,910). Those prices look hefty compared to the saloons, especially as the least expensive CT is £8,650 more than the entry point of the Taycan line, but of course that gap is mainly accounted for by the larger battery and four-wheel drive on the base Cross Turismo. Our car was a
Taycan Turbo Cross Turismo, £1,090 more than its equivalent saloon because the four-door Porsche EV Turbo-without-a-turbo comes with the same large battery and PTM as the wagon as standard.
Inside, the Cross Turismo looks exactly like a Taycan up front. There aren't any specific interior fabrics or badges or graphics to remind you that you're in the jacked-up estate, while the driving position - admittedly splendid though it is - doesn't feel appreciably higher despite the 30mm elevation in your eye-point. However, as the Taycan's cabin is beautifully finished and exceptional to operate anyway, the Cross Turismo's interior is near-faultless for us. It looks wonderful, especially with the optional passenger-side digital display bringing the number of glossy, crisp TFT screens in the fascia to four, and everything works intuitively. The better news comes for those sitting in the back of the Cross Turismo, who enjoy an additional 47mm of headroom thanks to the longer roofline. While the travelling in the back of the EV saloon is far from a hardship in the first place, the Cross Turismo is definitely more accommodating in the second row. Shame, then, that its boot isn't notably more capacious. At 405 litres with all seats in play, it holds a mere 39 litres more than a Taycan Turbo and even if you fold the 60:40 split rear bench away, the maximum carrying capacity is 1,171 litres. That's not massive by any stretch of the imagination, when it comes to estate cars of all shapes and sizes. Remember, it's a lifestyle wagon, not a practical one.
How does it drive?
Electric powertrains are identical to the Taycan range, so in this Turbo Cross Turismo we're looking at the twin motors, one on each axle, delivering up to 500kW (680hp) in the time-limited overboost phase of Launch Control. Otherwise, these two synchronous units dole out 460kW (625hp), which means the supposedly superior Turbo S looks like needless excess - as it only makes its peak 761hp and 1,050Nm numbers in the same narrow operating window of Launch Control. And despite it being taller and a teensy bit heavier than the Turbo saloon (by 90kg, so a honking great 2,395kg EU kerb weight means this Cross Turismo is a long way from being a featherweight), performance is hardly diminished at all: the Turbo Cross Turismo is basically a tenth or two behind its sibling for the usual accelerative benchmarks, while it's also 6mph slower flat out with a 155mph limited V-max, but with a 3.3-second 0-62mph run, 0-100mph taking seven seconds precisely, 0-124mph done and dusted with in just 10.7 seconds and the 50-75mph mid-range lunge dispatched in a scary 1.9 seconds, this is a very, very,
very fast car.
You certainly don't need any more speed on public roads than the Taycan Turbo Cross Turismo can summon up, that's for sure. Because this thing is
demented. It snaps your head back into the seat's restraint with such force if you open the taps at anything sub-60mph that you can physically hurt yourself if you're not careful, and it has the same relentless, seamless, brain-scrambling intensity of acceleration up to three figures that makes it feel every bit as potent as its Taycan Turbo saloon basis car. Also fitted with the optional Porsche Electronic Sport Sound (PESS, £354), we're now becoming thoroughly accustomed to the strangely boomy yet alluring whoop the German EV makes when it is in Sport Plus mode. NB: until recently, when a 4S passed us in a car park and then accelerated off at pace on the road beyond, we didn't realise just how loud PESS is outside the car, as well as within. We heartily approve of the acoustics in this regard.
OK, so with PTM and the reduction-gear boxes doing their thing, mega traction and bonkers speed were surely always going to be on the cards with the Taycan Turbo Cross Turismo. What has astounded us, though, is that this crossover-estate manages to pull off that sensational trick of preserving almost every last iota of handling goodness that the saloon provides, while simultaneously improving the ride comfort and refinement levels to a noticeable degree. OK, if you searched really, really hard and were super-strict on the Cross Turismo, you might discern a gnat's more lean to the shell during rapid cornering and maybe just the merest sensation of extra weight when you're on the brakes or trying to get it to turn in sharply, but out on the roads we'd argue the deficit was so negligible that you genuinely ought to discount it completely. The Cross Turismo doesn't understeer at all, it can perform lightning direction changes with little drama, it feels adjustable in the corners on the throttle, and it keeps rigid control over its body on its three-chamber air suspension and standard-fit Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM) dampers. Factor in strong Porsche Surface Coated Brakes (PSCB, with white-painted six-piston front, four-pot rear callipers gripping mammoth 410-/360mm discs respectively), typically exemplary Porsche feedback through the wheel and optional Rear-Axle Steering with Power Steering Plus (£1,650) providing extra agility, and we have absolutely no complaints at all about the way this 2.4-tonne lifestyle estate handles. It's a joy to drive quickly.
But it's even more of a joy to cruise along in it sedately, revelling in its exquisite manners and marvelling at the fact that you can't deduce in the slightest that it is rolling on whopping 21-inch rims as it goes. The Taycan Turbo Cross Turismo is even more comfortable and even quieter than the saloon, and as the latter car is no slouch in terms of majestic refinement then you can imagine just how good the estate is. Save for its maximum range being less than 300 miles on the WLTP combined cycle, we would happily drive this EV Porsche for socking great distances time and time again. Oh, and in mitigation of the driving range, at least - like any Taycan - the Cross Turismo has the 800-volt architecture which leads to maximum 270kW DC rapid charging rates, meaning if you can find the right hook-up then you can drop 62.1 miles of range into the Porsche in little more than five minutes. Even a 5-80 per cent charge will take less than 23 minutes at such hyper DC speeds.
Verdict
We've always been massive fans of a fast wagon but normally we like them to have a
rumbling V8 under the bonnet or even, if we're feeling particularly mental, a high-revving V10. But such means to a high-performance estate end cannot continue indefinitely as the proposed ICE ban of 2030 looms large on the horizon, so keen car enthusiasts could easily become despondent about what the future holds in terms of driving thrills as a result.
And then Porsche goes and serves you up this utter gem. Yeah, it's heavy. Yeah, it's bleedin' expensive. Yeah, it's not the largest estate car that has ever seen the light of day. But beyond these three facts? There's nothing we'd change about the Taycan Turbo Cross Turismo. Nothing. At. All. It looks epic on the outside, it has a stunning cabin with extra room for rear-seat passengers, it goes like unholy stink in a straight line and is, incredibly, even more talented in the corners, and yet you will travel in few cars that are any more cosseting than this machine, no matter how much cash you throw at the ride-comfort solution. Master of all trades and jack of none? The Car That Can Finally Do Everything? Yes, and yes. This Cross Turismo is a fantastic dream machine and the perfect EV antidote to anyone worrying about the anti-combustion years to come.
Passenger Space
Luggage Space
