The Porsche Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo reignites the lost magic of the 911

The Porsche 911 is too excellent for its own good.

On one hand, that’s exactly the point — the 911 is at once a dagger of a sports coupe and a sweetheart of a daily. But on the other, a once-complex character has fallen two-dimensional. The myth of the 911 is as much in its rewarding splendour as in its punishing temperament, but that endearingly volatile hamartia has been so marginalized as to fall irrelevant. It’s still great, just to a fault.

All is not lost, however: there’s another near-perfect Porsche in town, and that same technophilic refinement makes it one of the most compelling vehicles on offer. It isn’t even a car that I expected or intended to like, but the 2022 Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo is nigh-everything we were promised about the future. Further still, it might even be a better enthusiast buy than a 911.

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2022 Porsche Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo Photo by Elliot Alder

The Cross Turismo is Porsche’s emphatically-not-a-wagon shooting brake. Building up from the gorgeous Taycan electric sedan, the sub-model takes fresh aim at those who never quite ‘got’ the Panamera with a new strategy: similar everyday usability, but with the novelty of whiplash. But more than just a bigger Porsche, the Turbo S Cross Turismo flares the four-door profile into something determinedly ballistic.

As projectiles go, the long Taycan delivers its payload as rapidly as it does comfortably. Despite an added 110-or-so kilograms, performance figures keep within a hair of the sedan’s, with a rated 2.9 seconds to 100 km/h and a maximum of 250 km/h. In exchange for that 0.1-second sacrifice, the Cross Turismo adds 46 mm of rear headroom and ups boot capacity to a handy 1,200 litres. The sum of all this is a thrilling drive and expansive utility, all encapsulated within one of the best silhouettes of recent years.

Four-door sensibility and an electric powertrain obviously sets this a class apart from the storied 2+2 petrol sports coupe, but it retains many of the traits that draw people to the 911. Seating position and cockpit construction share the same well-appointed utilitarianism, with the same high standards for materials, fitment, and unobtrusive aesthetic coherence. Driving dynamics are carefully considered and sharply tuned, and we have seen that Taycans can run right up there with some of the tightest road-focused 911s.

Both lines feel equal-measures relaxed and suggestively poised, coddling even along a sleepy commute with an inherent frisk and a ‘just try me’ whisper. Although this can be a point of disaffection in the 911, it glows as a strength in the Taycan

Both an asset and a fault, the 911 was envisioned as a sports car that can be used every day. But where such fun, capable cars embody that role with promising purpose, they can just as readily frustrate traffic-bound drivers with an ‘are we there yet’ urge to zoom. Sporting pretence begets a heavy foot, and exercising the restraint necessary to keep a clean licence in a vehicle like the 911 Turbo S — one of the most technically impressive yet woefully disheartening vehicles I’ve driven on the road — itches to the point of pain. The 911 Turbo S isn’t much fun until it gets loud, you see, so life at five percent throttle simply isn’t much fun.

The Taycan still has athleticism in spades, but it doesn’t scratch at the same door of underutilized potential. It’s a platform that livens beyond expectation and will keep pace with many 911s given the right inputs, but that still lets drivers idly rubber-band through gridlocks without its siblings’ same sense of unfulfilled urgency. At low speeds, the AWD Cross Turismo naturally feels like it can and should be driven like a car, and it rewards temperate drivers with single-digit adherence to NRCan’s rated 325 km range and the straightforward comfort of a luxury estate. It’s a commutable performance car that doesn’t feel dysphoric on Highway 1.

2022 Porsche Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo Photo by Elliot Alder

The Taycan is more naturally relaxing then, but this appreciation of the Taycan’s comfort at suburban speeds should not be mistaken for a suggestion of softness. Dual-pane glass and electric steering dull driver feedback, but the Turbo S still goes where you want faster and more precisely than most drivers will ever process.

Easy as it might be to forget at 40 km/h in Eco mode, this remains one of the quickest cars in the world. Faster off the line than a Ferrari 488, two electric motors launch the 2.9-second Taycan Turbo S with 750 horsepower and 773 lb-ft of torque — and they’ll let you do it over and over again. Pressing the segment further still, the Taycan is also the first EV with a two-speed transmission on the rear axle, maximizing the pace and efficiency of both low-end acceleration and top-end speed.

The Taycan’s performance isn’t just an off-the-line gimmick either. Roadholding is superb, with dynamic air suspension that keeps sensitive bums comfortable as dutifully as it keeps tires pressed to asphalt and stiffly responsive. Rather than leaving the front wheels to tug the nose around bends, four-wheel steering pivots the Taycan Turbo S around its centre of mass and seems to bend the car’s rigid chassis around every chosen apex. Throw in some clever torque vectoring for good measure, and those gleeful G-forces come all too easily.

2022 Porsche Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo Photo by Elliot Alder

This Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo weighs 2.32 tons, mercifully concentrated down in the floor. That is a mountain of weight to fling around, yet the Taycan holds confidently through any on-ramp jolt or other bit of fun that an enthusiast might find on their commute. Get it up to speed, and the only hesitation you’ll feel is over your increased power consumption.

Although the Taycan manages its heft well, Porsche hasn’t managed to break all of the laws of physics. This is most apparent at the car’s four corners, where the (admittedly tepid in my use-case) Bridgestone Eagle F1s seemed the Taycan’s greatest limiting factor. Under the Turbo S’s most extreme acceleration and braking forces, even Porsche’s clever traction control fails to eliminate all slip and chatter. Still, the Turbo S remains an entirely predictable machine to pilot around the local route.

It’s a pleasant set of tricks, and one that significantly overlaps with the latest 911s. But where I have bemoaned their dilution of the 911 experience in the sub-GT 991 and current 992-generation 911s, I welcome them in the Taycan.

The 911 may have been envisioned as a usable sports car, but by its defining characteristics, it was never the most practical. Well-suited to touring and hooning alike, the 911 story is one of decades of purist driving thrills, of on-throttle smiles and lift-off puckers, of taking the long way home. It is a determinedly mechanical line, one that held on to air-cooled clatter even into the modern era, and with a history that Porsche is all too eager to bring up at any opportunity. Yuppies aside, it’s the distinct tactility of this air-cooled legacy that has endeared it to so many driving purists.

But if a 1970s G-series 911 is like driving a typewriter, the contemporary 992 is like driving a word processor. Today’s 911s predict, correct, and smooth the inputs of the lay driver with brilliant precision, keeping drivers on-page and at greater speeds than ever before. Keen to leave past 911s’ ‘widowmaker’ reputations behind, Stuttgart’s engineers have packed so much clever technology into their modern creations that competent drivers should be able to press harder than ever without writing their cars off.

That’s all objectively grand, but it’s bleached the last decade’s road-focused 911s in an antiseptic bath. Held against their forebears, the modern cars’ feedback has been numbed and smoothed beyond subjective recognition. Of course Porsche would be imprudent not to do away with the historic badness, but for purists, it’s all gotten just a little too good.

“But you can still get three-pedal 911s,” I hear you say. Yes, you can — but almost nobody does. Just 13% of Canadians optioned available manuals on 911s over the last year, while 67% of enthusiasts ticked the box for their 718s. Despite the 911’s prestige, it clearly isn’t pulling the purist crowd.

2022 Porsche Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo Photo by Elliot Alder

Before David Booth comes out and tells me that progress is a virtue and legacies don’t matter, let me emphasize that they do. There is a reason that childless Bay Street types buy 911s instead of more-thrilling 718s. Nameplates acquire and convey cultural meaning — and with that, memetic expectation. More than a numerical token, 911 means a very specific something to the people who care about it. It’s the reason that pedantic purists get all pissy whenever the brand pulls forward, and why we’ve seen an unmitigated explosion of air-cooled values on the collector market.

But where the 911 nameplate is charged with decades of memory and expectation, the Taycan carries no such encumbrances. Porsche’s started anew with a blank slate, and the results are a new kind of wonderful.

Where I mourn the 911s’ lack of volatility, I praise that trait in the Taycan. Porsche has introduced a nameplate for the modern era, one that expresses its technological ambitions without the begrudgingly profitable acknowledgement of the past. It still reflects the ethos of usable performance, but stretches the scale toward usability and accessibility without pulling back on excitement.

2022 Porsche Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo Photo by Elliot Alder

2022 Porsche Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo dual-pane glass Photo by Elliot Alder

2022 Porsche Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo Photo by Elliot Alder

2022 Porsche Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo charging Photo by Elliot Alder

2022 Porsche Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo Photo by Elliot Alder

2022 Porsche Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo Sport Chrono Photo by Elliot Alder

2022 Porsche Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo Photo by Elliot Alder

2022 Porsche Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo carbon-ceramic brakes Photo by Elliot Alder

2022 Porsche Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo Photo by Elliot Alder

2022 Porsche Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo charging at a Petro Canada Level 3 Photo by Elliot Alder

It still isn’t perfect, of course — good luck seeing anything close to Porsche’s claimed 270 kW charge speeds even from a flat battery — but the 800-volt architecture does top up quicker than most anything on the market. And while digitization of every cabin control is an understandable response to shoppers’ expectations of newfangled EVs as technology showcases, screen-only vent aiming is absurd. Ability does not equal imperative; perhaps you can, but it doesn’t mean you should.

Pricing also remains a sore spot, with this top-shelf car starting at almost double the cost of a ‘base’ Taycan 4. The plenty-enjoyable $128,000 4S trim seems the sweet spot for the Cross Turismo, falling roughly in line with the E63 AMG and Audi RS 6 Avant on both the invoice and the tarmac. But despite its near-quarter-million-dollar sticker, this halo model fills the important role of showing consumers what brilliance is trickling down through the Porsche lineup.

2022 Porsche Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo charging at a Petro Canada Level 3 Photo by Elliot Alder

I don’t want it to be true, but I stand firmly convinced that the new Taycan Turbo S is a more compelling enthusiast buy than the 911. The Taycan is beholden to nobody, and in that unwavering newness, Porsche has channeled a purity of purpose so sublime that even this obdurate purist can’t help but cheer. The Taycan seems to have accidentally executed the mandate that the 928 never fulfilled, and as range and infrastructure improve, I will have a hard time seeing the case for the sub-GT 911s.

Few modern cars have kept me chasing roads until sunrise, but this one is something special. The 911 might be too great for its own good, but the Taycan is too excellent for my own good.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a 944 to apologize to.

Keyword: The Porsche Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo reignites the lost magic of the 911

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