The Taycan GTS Is The Best Car Porsche Makes Right Now

In the Porsche range, choice is king. Not just in terms of models, where everything from big SUVs to two-seater sports cars appear, but also in terms of variants. For instance, there are currently 25 different versions of the 911. Twenty-five!

The Taycan is the most recent all-new model to be added to the Porsche stable, but already, you can have it in various forms. You want a basic, rear-wheel drive saloon? Sure. An enormously powerful version? The Turbo and Turbo S sort that nicely, for a price. There’s even a lifted Cross Turismo for those who want to get off the beaten track, or at least make it look like they’re going to.

Amidst the 14 different Taycan permutations, of which I’ve driven most since the model was launched in 2019, I’m pretty sure I’ve nailed down the best one - the Taycan GTS Sport Turismo. But I’d go further, and suggest that all things considered, it’s the best car Porsche makes.

First off, it’s electric. And yes, I know that’s off-putting for many petrolheads, but in day-to-day driving, an EV is simply more relaxing. Don’t @ me. It gets the bigger 93.4kWh, which makes for a real-world range of over 250 miles - inevitably you’ll get someone harping on about how they need to drive from Land’s End to John o’Groats every other weekend, so that’s not enough, but for most folk, 250 miles is plenty. And for the occasions when it isn’t, the Taycan charges fast enough that by the time you’ve plugged in, stopped for a wee and bought a sausage roll, you’ll likely have the requisite range to comfortably get to the destination.

Then we have to consider practicality. In all Sport Turismo Taycans, you get 530 litres of boot space, expanding to 1,296 with the rear seats folded. Granted, there are more capacious estate cars out there, and with a relatively low roofline, the Taycan ST is going to struggle with especially bulky loads, but nearly 1,300 litres is still decent innings.

Making our test car more practical still, it came fitted with the official Porsche Taycan bike carrier, which directly slots into two ports in the car’s structure, rather than on anything ungainly like a tow ball (which you can’t, as it stands, have on a Taycan). It can accommodate two bikes, even if they’re heavy e-bikes. A particularly neat touch is that the back of the carrier mirrors the Taycan’s rear-end design, just in case it wasn’t clear enough this is an official Porsche accessory.

It’s expensive, as you’d probably expect, at £2,583, but it’s really easy to use thanks partly to a ratcheting system used to secure the bikes, and it’s incredibly sturdy. Provided you’ve put the bikes on right, you can do launch control starts without a worry. Yes, I tested this, as well as hard cornering, without a worry.

On the performance front, the Taycan GTS develops 593bhp, which is some way off the Turbo, but you really don’t need to go any quicker. As it stands, 0-62mph comes up in just 3.7 seconds. Acceleration is more interesting than in the average uber-fast EV, as there’s a two-speed gearbox, and yes, you do actually notice the shift. There’s also some sci-fi-like feedback noise, which works quite well, but you can switch it off if you’re not a fan.

The GTS features the rear motor of the Taycan Turbo, but keeps the 4S motor up front, making for a more rear-led attitude than other all-wheel drive Taycans. It’ll step out a little at the rear if you get greedy with the throttle - enough to make the GTS feel playful, but not intimidating.

The best thing, though, is just how quickly it can change direction. You’d never guess that this is a 2.4-tonne car, given its athletic performance on a twisty road. We can only imagine how good it’ll be once battery tech improves and the weight figure comes down a bit. The caveat is the adaptive dampers ideally need to be left in their slackest setting, leaving them still firm enough to resist significant body roll, but more compliant on the average crappy Uk road surface.

To drive, the Taycan GTS is - of course - not quite as good as something like a 911, but certainly on a par with the excellent Panamera, yet potentially a lot cheaper to run, and more relaxing for ‘normal’ motoring.

All of this comes at quite a cost - £111,200, and that’s before you’ve added options or pricey official accessories like that bike rack. But for a Porsche that does it all, and does it all better than anything else in the stable, that doesn’t seem so bad.