Panamera

Make
Porsche
Segment
Sedan

For a while now it seemed like the biggest news regarding the new Porsche Panamera was that it looked less ugly. That's not exactly the type of buzz Porsche wants surrounding one of its new models. Fortunately the German automaker has given us something else to talk about regarding the new Panamera: The fact that it'll be faster around the Nuburgring than the legendary Carrera GT. This incredible information was casually relayed to Autocar by Panamera model line director Gernot Döllner.

Döllner invited Autocar to a hot weather testing session in South Africa for the new Panamera. He of course made mention of more than just the Panamera's Nuburgring time, touching on everything from the car's engines to its increased trunk space and the possibility of a spiritual successor to the 928 (it's still just a rumor). The fact that the Panamera will be able to outrun the Carrera GT on the Nurburgring was mentioned seemingly in passing. Döllner was talking about the car's performance potential, should you decide to throw fuel economy concerns aside, and said that the Panamera could lap The Green Hell "as fast as our previous super-sports car."

The Porsche 918 is the automaker's current super sports car, making the Carrera GT the car the Panamera boss was not-so-subtly mentioning. For reference the GT ran a lap of 07:28.71, beating cars like the Lexus LFA and falling just short of the Ferrari 458 Italia's time of 07:28.00. If the Panamera can beat that time by more than a few microseconds it would join some great company, including the BMW M4 GTS (07:27.88) and the Nissan GT-R (07:26.70). The new Panamera will have its official reveal later in the year, so we may have to wait a bit longer to see just how fast it is around the iconic track.