Not that I’m mad about it, but the Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo is getting ready for production and it is basically what it’d look like if the sports car (sports SUV?) company made an Outback.
All of the elements are there:
The car sits higher.
The car has all-wheel drive.
The car has extra body-cladding so that mud doesn’t rough up your paint.
The Cross Turismo is basically just a taller Taycan with some body cladding and nostrils. I find Porsche’s breathless press-release description of this pretty low-key transformation particularly amusing:
“With the Taycan Cross Turismo, we wanted to offer a little bit more space, a little more flexibility and versatility,” he says from behind the wheel. “We developed a completely new roofline, fitted with roof rails, a more generous second row and bigger trunk, all to make a car that is perfect for an active lifestyle. A car that is perfect for both an urban environment and the countryside.”
The Cross Turismo glides around sweeping bends as its commander in chief talks freely about what has, up until now, been a closely guarded secret beyond the walls of Weissach and the Taycan production line in Zuffenhausen. “In order to enable it to handle light off-roading and gravel roads,” Weckbach continues, “we increased the ground clearance. And we optimised our suspension system so the Cross Turismo comes with a CUV (cross utility vehicle) specific driving mode. This makes sure it does well on gravel roads in terms of stability, performance, and dynamics.”
I must also add that both this Porsche and the humble Subaru Outback are premium propositions. Buying an Outback is telling the world that you do not want an SUV. You are still rooted in the ’90s, you declare, ready to eat granola and listen to Alanis Morisette while driving to a hot air balloon festival, or whatever else we did in the Clinton Administration. That’s Subaru, and that’s the Outback.
Porsche is decidedly not that company. Its entire modern era rests on the back of the Porsche Cayenne, a car that helped drive the SUV takeover of the global car market. Along with the Mercedes ML and BMW X5, the Cayenne made it clear that SUVs weren’t just for truck people or for offroading. They were luxury cars.
I guess now the luxury is, as the Outback has defined, the ability to not buy an SUV or crossover. It’s a sales model that seems to work for Subaru, that’s for sure. Take it from that perspective and nothing could make more sense than Porsche Outback-ifying the Taycan.