Much has been hyped about the 2025 Porsche Panamera hybrids’ dancing new ‘Active Ride’ suspension, but that shouldn’t be taken to suggest that its siblings are any less impressive.
The 2025 Porsche Panamera GTS doesn’t get that hybrid-powered lean-in gimmickry; instead, its standard poise and petrol-only power afford a delightfully direct complement for the more road-focused driver. It also gets silly wheels, but we’ll get to that.
Like a more consolidated spin on Mercedes’ excessive model sprawl, Porsche’s whole bit of late has been to stretch each model line into offering a flavour for everyone. We’ve tested the Panamera sedan in flavours ranging from the near-base Unremarkable Passat For Rich People ‘4’ trim to the 771-horsepower More Usable And Gratifying Than a 992TT ‘Turbo S E-Hybrid’ flagship.
Particularly as Turbo S lines have turned from limited end-of-production specials to Poor If You Didn’t Spec One mall-lot status buys, however, Porsche’s ‘GTS’ trims have taken position between these bookends but atop the drivers’ cars you might actually spot at a grown-up lapping day. It may not be the top outright performer, but it’s the still-expensive cost-performance(-status) sweet spot that monied brand loyalists will look toward.
Now in a new(-ish) generation, that sweet spot benefits from a raft of updates: chiefly, a new twin-chamber suspension that independently controls compression and rebound. That sort of valving is nothing new of course, but the way that the Panamera’s software deploys it certainly is. Now standard across the line, it makes these cars handle intriguingly across the range.
Nuts to the power and the rest: these new-gen Panameras’ body control thus absolutely shines across twisting undulations. Contrasted with peers that merely stiffen and squat, a measured softness characterizes the Panamera’s suspension. There’s a 10-mm drop and 50% more sway bar holding everything square, but with softer base spring rates leaving more to the discretion of the selected damper program. Throw its mass over a crest under lateral load and the usual floaty thrill still excites, but elicits a curious “oh?” as a firm hand seemingly arcs those 2.1 tonnes around a pre-calculated trajectory. It doesn’t feel singularly laser-focused like a GT3; instead think of a Type A who knows they’ll get farther with some deference to social cues and grace.
This confidently planted chassis experience is distinct from overall ride, granted: rolling tall 21-inch wheels on unyieldingly thin sidewalls, the Panamera still strikes bumps and disturbances with somewhat jarring abruptness. Silken German infrastructure didn’t draw too much drumming tire noise on this particular drive, but it’s also worth remembering that coarse Canadian surfaces may draw more drone as in our week-long at-home experience with an acoustic-glassed Panamera 4.
Still: between its longer wheelbase and fresher setup, this GTS is assuredly more comfortable over a railroad crossing than the 992 911 GTS (but so too is the locally built Ford GT supercar). Really though, we’ll probably have to pray for a Panamera Dakar for full-on urban winter-heave compliance.
Seating remains the usual, GTS models coming standard with Porsche’s upgraded but forgiving 18-way buckets. Massagers and ventilation are available front and rear. The two rears are distinctly supportive for back seats, and while the new centre pop-open cup-holder console optionally takes the place of a fifth spot, you weren’t fitting an actual person between those deep buckets anyway. Note that in the absence of a long-roofed ‘Turismo’ wagon variant, rear headroom is a little compromised either way, as in the like-rooflined Taycan.
Ahead, infotainment is Porsche’s updated but now superseded interface familiar from the 992 and existing Panamera. While not the unpleasant legacy setup still holding on in the 982.2 718 line, it isn’t the fabulously friendly new Android Automotive OS-based environment launched in the updated Taycan and new Macan EV. The Panamera’s HUD is again a little behind the new-gen augmented-reality brilliance in those showcase EVs, but it does the job plenty cleanly and doesn’t leave you wanting.
For navigators this means another round of imperfect, at times clunky native route guidance that’ll quite certainly underestimate traffic slowdown times. The new Macan system’s native cluster/HUD-integrated Google/Waze would be nice for so well near a quarter million, but folks have paid more for less. Wireless centre-screen Apple CarPlay and Android Auto project through the centre screen from standard, and a wireless charger tucks down below; just be sure to close the compartment before you launch, lest you send your phone into the back seat.
Launches come via an evolution of the same 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 inherited from the old gen and shared with the hybrid models. It’s a welcome personality shift from the relatively dull 2.9-litre V6 in the entry cars, delivering 493 horsepower and 487 foot-pounds of torque. All-wheel traction through aggressive Pilot Sport S 5s (or P Zeroes, if you’re into that) channels that into 3.8-second acceleration to 100 km/h. Topped out in eighth gear, that’s a rated 302 km/h.
In usual Porsche fashion, torque starts from just before 2,000 rpm, holds to 4,000, then fades only gradually as horsepower makes its distinctly steady climb toward 6,500. Porsche has simplified from last generation’s twin-scroll turbochargers to single-scroll units, evidently without consequence in this gas-only configuration and with powerful hybrid torque infill insulating those models’ dyno curves from any unsightly evidence of lag. These turbos follow the BMW N63 engine’s pattern of a ‘hot vee’ configuration which affords shorter runners for faster spooling, if at greater heat exposure and vulnerability. Technicians tend to have strong feelings about these configurations, but those fellas complain about everything.
Sound from this V8 mill is predictably bubblier than the V6 models’, also thanks to the GTS’ more lively exhaust. It’s a fun muscular thrum about town in noisy mode and a well-damped pleasure rolling out for those 3.8 full-pedal seconds you’ll be allowed here in Canada. All that great sound insulation yes, but still some theatre when you or your passengers ask.
Driven back-to-back with the 771-horsepower Turbo S, the GTS’ 3.8 seconds are absolutely more auditorily and emotionally gratifying than the 2.9 seconds in the flagship. A third longer in its accelerative drawl, the GTS doesn’t feel in any way slow; conversely, it allows that smidge more time to savour the sensations of power and torque, that leeway to use more of the pedal, that full-combustion labour without any silent electrons easing your demands from that V8.
That balance carries across much of how you’d drive the GTS. Running up to such a high ceiling as it is, the GTS already takes some dispiriting temperance of the foot; Turbo S models that much more. Babysitting something you can barely enjoy isn’t so fun once the novelty wears off, and the GTS already pushes past what most of us will be able to make earnest use of at home. A V8 at 4S output would make for a more usable plaything, but it wouldn’t be More in the way shoppers need.
Silly market demands don’t end there. The 2025 Porsche Panamera GTS and Turbo S now equip GT3-style centre-lock wheels, because of course they do. Novel and stylish, these fasteners demand a specialized four-foot torque wrench and five times the ugga-dugga required of typical wheel bolts. It’s inconvenient theatre for anyone who’d actually be swapping their own wheels at the track, but Porsche has clearly identified an audience for the gimmick.
Sillier still is the available passenger-side display, a because-you-can option which redundantly mirrors centre-screen displays with reduced functionality. At $1,850, this feature is more expensive than fitting properly useful features like car-shrinking rear-axle steering, 360-view cameras, quad-zone automatic climate, a head-up display, or advanced lane-keeping assistance (each ranging from $1,350 to $1,840).
Costlier but worth consideration at this price are Porsche’s impressive LED Matrix headlamps, which can selectively fill a winding lane with high-beam output without blinding other drivers (or blasting back at you from reflective road signs). Tested on the Panamera 4 here in Canada, this option delivers a more impressive display than Mercedes’ more pixelated equivalent.
Base 2025 Porsche Panamera pricing starts in Canada from $122,450 after $2,750 destination charge, but the Panamera GTS stretches up to an MSRP of $176,150. Along with the $41,690 of options seen here, paint, fees, and luxury tax take this tested unit to a sticker of some $243,018.
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