Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo loses the bubble butt (pictures)
Porsche showed off a new concept at the 2012 Paris Motor Show, a shooting-brake-style car with a plug-in hybrid drive system. With less of a bubble butt than the production Panamera, it will likely still invite controversy.
Wayne Cunningham
Wayne Cunningham reviews cars and writes about automotive technology for CNET's Roadshow. Prior to the automotive beat, he covered spyware, Web building technologies, and computer hardware. He began covering technology and the Web in 1994 as an editor of The Net magazine.
Porsche shows few concept cars, but at the 2012 Paris Motor Show the company unveiled this Panamera Sport Turismo, which it calls its "sports car of tomorrow." Based on the Panamera model, the Sport Turismo concept uses an altered body style, a plug-in hybrid drive system, and a rear-wheel-drive configuration.
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The style is similar to a shooting brake, although in the U.S. we might refer to it more as a station wagon. The rear end is considerably less rounded than on the production Panamera, and looks like it would increase interior volume due to the flatter hatchback.
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The Sport Turismo is powered by an evolution of Porsche's hybrid drive system currently used in the Panamera Hybrid. The 3-liter supercharged V-6 is the same, but the complementary electric drive system delivers more power, almost double the current system, for total output of 416 horsepower. At the same time, Porsche says the concept could achieve 68 mpg.
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The lithium ion battery pack can be charged to full in 2.5 hours, giving the Sport Turismo pure electric driving range of about 18 miles. Porsche rates the acceleration to 60 mph at under 6 seconds, and the top speed under electric power at about 80 mph.
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With this concept, Porsche says it would use black panel instrument technology, where displays and gauges seem to disappear when the car is powered down. Porsche also says it would be integrated with smartphones, so the driver could schedule charging with an app, as one instance.
