Porsche Panamera Turbo S Revealed

Flagship 542bhp super-saloon hits the streets this June

Porsche has unveiled a new range-topping Panamera Turbo S, the addition of that last letter taking the super-saloon's power up to 542bhp - and its price up to a wallet-emptying £122,263.

That's almost £20k more than the 'regular' Panamera Turbo, but for your money you do get an extra 49bhp and 553lb ft of torque (up 37lb ft), stretching to a deeply chunky 590lb ft on over-boost, should you choose to specify the Sport Chrono package.

That results in a 0-62mph sprint for the all-wheel-drive machine of a mere 3.8secs (an improvement of 0.4secs over the standard Turbo) and a top speed of 191mph (up 3mph). What might be a little galling for Turbo owners, however, is that this extra pace doesn't come at the expense of fuel economy; the Turbo S records exactly the same 24.6mpg on the official combined cycle as the regular Turbo.

According to Porsche, this extra poke comes courtesy of tweaked engine management, and titanium-aluminium turbine wheels for the turbochargers. This reduces the weight of the turbine and compressor wheel, which results in a lower moment of inertia

But what else do you get for your extra £20k? Well, there's Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control (PDCC), which is an active anti-roll system, as standard.

Accompanying PDCC in the Panamera Turbo S's acronym land is PTV Plus. This, although it sounds like something you can get on Sky, is actually Porsche Torque Vectoring Plus and applies a variable torque split to the rear wheels. Porsche says that this, "in combination with an electronically controlled rear limited slip differential, ensures superior traction and therefore greater agility in every driving situation". So there you go.

Attention has been paid to the visuals, too, with 20-inch Turbo II alloy wheels with increased rear axle track width, side skirts from the Porsche Exclusive range and an adaptive extending four-way rear spoiler fitted as standard. Inside, there is two-colour leather upholstery as standard, with two new optional combinations of (black/cream and agate grey/cream) exclusively for the new Panamera Turbo S available from the autumn.

The Panamera Turbo S itself goes on sale in June.