Porsche has made a 670bhp hybrid estate car

In urgent need of a fast German estate car but always found the Audi RS6 a bit, erm, unpowerful? Well, you’re clearly mad.

But happily, Porsche has catered for your needs. This is the 670bhp (!) Panamera Turbo S e-Hybrid Sport Turismo. If the name seems a bit clunky, the rather svelte looking car is not.

It’s over 70bhp healthier than the fastest factory RS6, and it’s got hybrid power to thank. The 542bhp twin-turbo V8 from the ‘normal’ Turbo Turismo is given some assistance it hardly needed from a 134bhp electric motor. That’s basically a whole extra Swift Sport.

The same powertrain has already debuted in the hatchback Panamera, and it’s basically the ushering in of Porsche’s ethos that the top-rung Turbo should be petrol-electric.

On top of its Ferrari 488-beating power figure is 627lb ft of torque – any more, and it would be rivalling an aircraft carrier – enough to shuffle a two-tonne estate car to 62mph in 3.4secs (0.3sec below an RS6) on its way to a 192mph top speed (37mph greater than the Audi). Oh, and 0-124mph takes 8.5secs. That’s astonishing.

While these figures ought to be frighteningly achievable in the right conditions, the claimed 97.4mpg combined fuel consumption will likely remain solely on the spec sheet. But with around 30 miles of electric-only driving possible via a charge time of under three hours, there’s some flexibility here if you can plug the car in. And without any intervention from the V8, you can still hit 87mph…

As Porsche’s top-drawer model, there are many acronyms to learn. So there’s PAA (fancy active roof spoiler), PTV Plus (fancy handling stuff), PCCB (fancy brakes), PDCC Sport (fancy suspension) and PASM (even fancier suspension).

Being the Sport Turismo, there’s a lower boot lip and extra storage space over a regular Panamera – though perhaps not as much as you might think – as well as five seats rather than four.

The price? Um, £140,868. Pre-options. That makes it more expensive than a 911 Turbo or, when new, the ultra-exclusive 911 R. There is a heck of a lot of tech on board, though. And next time you meet an RS6 owner, some enormous bragging rights, too…