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The Wow Exceeded the Hype!

I read all of the reviews, I watched countless YouTube driving impressions, and I virtually rode along with the Nordschleife record lap several times. Indeed, there was high-hype to overcome when I slid into the cockpit for my first drive of a Taycan Turbo S. I expected to be dazzled. I didn’t expect what actually happened.  


I didn’t have to squint very hard for my brain to convert this beautiful Frozen Blue Taycan Turbo S into…
… its spiritual forebearer.

Having driven most Porsche models and having enjoyed my fair share of real race-car drives, I have been blessed with more than five decades of Porsche and motorsport experiences to calibrate a new car by. So when my friends at Hoffman Porsche offered me a chance to update my resume by sampling the top electrical offering from Porsche, I was as excited as my first Porsche drive from them over four decades ago. With a touch of cosmic karma, I distinctly recalled my first Porsche test drive on the exact same section of road, the entrance to Route 2.

First impression: Steering response and turn-in of the Taycan Turbo S was as immediate and as direct as my ultra-light 1976 Porsche despite the new flagship carrying over twice the mass. I would never have guessed that masterful suspension engineering could have completely overcome such figures.

An F22 Raptor equivalent in a sky full of Piper Cubs.  

Next impression: Wow, this is such a luxurious GT sports car in the very best sense of those words. It ate up all the road through its way without any complaints and without ever feeling challenged. The composure was remarkable and the precision was so confidence-inspiring. It was clear that the Taycan had total road superiority the way an F22 Raptor would dominate a sky full of Piper Cubs.  You could instantly and precisely place the car anywhere you wanted. It felt so much more nimble and exacting than I was prepared for.

The Taycan does warp space and time as the reviews accurately describe. Amazing 0-60MPH figures and launch control starts are indeed in rocket ship territory. While real race car seat time prepared me for the violent acceleration, I wasn’t expecting audible giggles to emanate from me as a result. Whether from a standstill or an already significant pace, the giggle pedal never ran dry and never failed to deliver unending acceleration. My favorite memory from the whole drive was when, un-noticed by my co-pilot, I silently selected Sport+ mode, stepped on both the pedals, then released the brake. Pam was literally plastered into the passenger seat unable to free herself from the unexpected demonic forces. My giggling grew, only stifled by the bark of “don’t ever do that again” from the aforementioned seat. I learned my lesson and announced the second launch in advance, this time resulting in no barks, just stereo giggling.     

After experiencing this sci-fi spaceship in the real world, I can completely understand the wisdom of selecting the stealth Volcano Grey exterior. Speed is truly just a number on the dash, divorced from physics.

At various points on the test drive I clearly recalled flashbacks to the Star Wars Hyper-Space jump scene. Cars that were well in advance seemed to freeze in place on the road without benefit of any brake lights. Normal perception of velocity seemed broken. Glancing at the speedometer my brain protested, complaining that “this can’t possibly be right”. My faith in Porsche’s engineering prevailed as I knew they would never allow such a discrepancy – the gauge, of course, was spot on.

Faith: That’s what I needed when the predictive range read-out dropped by 10 miles in just over half a mile of physics warping indulgence. Luckily, rotating the steering wheel mode selector back to “normal”, accompanied by some better behavior, replenished the range almost as quickly as it had fallen. By the end of my 30 mile test drive it all averaged out and I only consumed about 28 miles of range. That’s a testament to Weisach’s accuracy and cleverness. Turning my new favorite dial one click further to “range” mode yielded another unexpected result. It drove completely normal and sporty, not at all wimpy, except that speed would be curtailed to 80 MPH. By the way, 80 in this car feels like 40 in a nice normal car (ahhem…so I’m told).

…road superiority, luxury, and complete harmony…one of the most pure driving experiences I have ever had in a road car.

Overall impression: I could have driven this Taycan for many, many, more hours, and measured distance by counting states. I knew that was a sign that it was time to pull back into the Hoffman lot. I wasn’t prepared for how astonishingly and utterly relaxed and refreshed I felt after such a drive. The combination of road superiority, luxury, and complete harmony with the Taycan meant that there were no distractions from one of the most pure driving experiences I have ever had in a road car. Just an intuitively calm and clear conversation with this unearthly machine. It was like listening to a high-end stereo for the first time, you never knew what you were missing until that point. Now you can’t go back.

Sorry if I’m the cause of slowing down the whole internet. Too many iterations of the Porsche on-line configuration tool. So many possibilities!  

The take-away: Every other car suddenly felt obsolete, old, and crude. While the flat-out wail of a Porsche six at full song will never get old, Porsche’s future is here now, in the form of a refined pure driving experience. Now I need time to rethink my fleet strategy. I’m sorry if I’ve single-handedly jammed up the Porsche configurator tool since that drive, but there are so many possibilities to contemplate. I can’t thank the Driven by Trust team at Hoffman Porsche enough for such an opportunity and experience.

Wow indeed!  

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