That’s without optional extras or the Certificate Of Entitlement, mind you. Here’s what the money does buy you…

SINGAPORE — Hot on the heels of a facelift for Porsche’s Panamera comes a range of updated Sport Turismo versions. 

Porsche refers to the Panamera as a sedan, and the Sport Turismo is essentially a wagon version, with more boot space. The luggage room is rated at 520 litres with the rear seats in place, and 1,390 litres when you fold them (versus 500 and 1,304 litres for the Panamera sedan).

You can now order three versions of the Sport Turismo here, starting with the base Panamera 4 (at S$408,388), the plug-in Panamera 4 E-Hybrid (at S$457,388) and the sporty Panamera GTS (S$670,588).

The prices don’t include Certificate Of Entitlement of options, but each car does come with a five-year warranty and maintenance package, with the options to extend the warranty to 15 years. That’s faith in product quality for you.

We’ve driven the most basic Panamera you can buy. Click here for our verdict…

As with the Panamera sedan, you can spot the revamped Sport Turismo models from their slightly revised front end styling. The Sport Design pack is now standard instead of optional, and it gives the front bumpers larger air intakes and distinctive, neatly incorporated LED daytime running lights.

READ MORE > Full details of the Panamera’s mid-life revamp

Porsche says it fiddled with the suspension and steering to improve ride and handling. Engineers also tweaked the PASM and anti-roll PDCC systems — that’s Porsche Active Suspension Management and Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control Sport, respectively. That’s nice to know, since the Panamera was the sharpest handling car in its class even before the revisions.

And since you can’t buy a BMW 7 Series Touring or Mercedes S-Class Estate, the Panamera Sport Turismo is a handling champ by default.

There’s new stuff under the bonnet, too. The Panamera 4 (the number tells you how many wheels the engine drives) gets a new 2.9-litre, twin-turbo V6 that’s good for 330 horsepower and 450 Newton-metres of peak torque. It propels the big Porsche to 100km/h in 5.3 seconds and on to 263km/h, which means even the slowest Sport Turismo isn’t slow.

If you’re a serious driving fan (or conversely, someone who has enough of a sense of humour to want to track a large wagon to the track), you’ll want the GTS. Its 4.0-litre, twin-turbo V8 conjures up 480hp now (that’s 20 more than before the facelift) and a tasty 620Nm; specced with the Sport Chrono Package it’ll zip to 100km/h in 3.9 seconds and hit 292km/h.

The price tag might seem salty, but in our experience the GTS trim adds lots of worthwhile equipment, and if you ask us, the sharper suspension settings usually make GTS Porsches better to drive than even the more powerful Turbo variants, at least on the track.

Whee! We had a go at the Panamera GTS on the track in 2019 and it was a blast!

The wildcard of the bunch is the 4 E-Hybrid. Porsche has the distinction of being the first manufacturer to launch a plug-in hybrid here (with 2014’s Panamera S E-Hybrid), and it’s a breed that’s found huge success in Europe, where nearly one-in-four new cars now comes with a charging port.

Like all plug-ins it has a motor and battery for short distances of pure electric drive — in this case it’s a claimed 55km (according to the tougher new WLTP testing standards). That’s courtesy of a 17.9kWh battery that lives under the boot floor; it cuts luggage capacity to 418 litres with the seats up or 1,287 litres down.

The 136hp, 400Nm electric motor gives the Porsche’s 2.9-litre V6 a boost, so the car’s total output is 462hp. When no one’s looking, it’ll hit 100km/h in 4.4 seconds (with the Sport Chrono Package fitted) and keep accelerating to 280km/h. It’s like the incredible hulk of cars, really: green and powerful.

READ MORE > Porsche is so serious about electric cars, it’s building its a high-speed charging network from here to Kuala Lumpur

That’s not as incongruous as you might think. As Porsche speeds towards electrification along with the rest of the motoring world, it is leaning on electric motors not just to reduce emissions, but to boost performance. The most powerful Panamera of all is a plug-in, the 700hp Turbo S E-Hybrid.

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