7 Seriously Fast Cars The New Porsche Panamera Turbo Just Beat Around The Nurburgring

The new Panamera Turbo clocked a stunning 7min 38sec lap at the Nordschleife, making it faster than an impressive roster of performance cars
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Seven minutes, and 38 seconds. That’s how fast the new Porsche Panamera Turbo - a luxury-festooned car which probably weighs the best part of two tonnes - lapped the Nurburgring Nordschleife. As with any new willy waving ‘Ring time, as soon as we heard it, we were thinking of other laps to put the porky Porsche’s lap in context. And it turns out the Panamera Turbo has claimed some impressive scalps.

7 Seriously Fast Cars The New Porsche Panamera Turbo Just Beat Around The Nurburgring

Now, there are a couple of caveats to bear in mind before we go any further. Firstly, not all of these lap times are full-on manufacturer efforts, as is the case with the Porsche. Many are from magazines like Sport Auto, and while experienced drivers are used, they simply don’t have the budget and resources of manufacturers who will happily spend some time at the ‘Ring with a massive team of people sending a car round again and again.

The second caveat is tyres: some of these laps aren’t quite as recent as others, so if a few of the cars were to run again on modern, more advanced rubber, they might well clock faster times. Even bearing that in mind though, the Panamera’s time is an impressive one. Let’s take a look at a few of the cars it’s ‘beaten’…

Lamborghini Murcielago SV - 7min 42sec

Test conducted by Sport Auto in 2009, driver Horst von Saurma
Test conducted by Sport Auto in 2009, driver Horst von Saurma

Yep, a four-wheel drive, V12 Italian supercar from not that long ago is slower than a big four-door saloon. Exciting times…

Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 - 7min 41.27sec

Test conducted by GM in 2011, driver Aaron Link
Test conducted by GM in 2011, driver Aaron Link

Mercedes SLS AMG - 7min 40sec

Test conducted by Sport Auto in 2010, driver Horst von Saurma
Test conducted by Sport Auto in 2010, driver Horst von Saurma

Porsche 911 GT3 (997) - 7min 40sec

Test conducted by Sport Auto in 2009, driver Horst von Saurma
Test conducted by Sport Auto in 2009, driver Horst von Saurma

One of the most important ‘scalps’ on the list is another Porsche: the previous-generation GT3, a car intended for the track, not wafting around in comfort.

Porsche 911 Turbo (997) - 7min 39sec

Test conducted by Porsche, driver unknown
Test conducted by Porsche, driver unknown

The Panamera pipping the 997 Turbo is arguably even more impressive than the GT3, since this was a proper manufacturer-backed effort. And don’t forget, we’re talking about a 473bhp supercar that’s significantly lighter than the Panamera. And speaking of lighter supercars…

Ferrari F430 Scuderia - 7min 39sec

Test conducted by Sport Auto in 2008, driver Horst von Saurma
Test conducted by Sport Auto in 2008, driver Horst von Saurma

Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio - 7min 39sec

Test conducted by Alfa Romeo with pre-production car, driver unknown
Test conducted by Alfa Romeo with pre-production car, driver unknown

This is arguably the most important time here that the Panamera beat, as by besting the lighter, not far off as powerful Alfa Giulia Quadrifoglio, the Porsche can be given the unofficial title of ‘fastest luxury saloon at the Nurburgring’.

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Comments

Anonymous

I feel this post shows how meaningless the nurburgring has become. It is an amazing track, and if i ever go to Germany there’s no way I’m not renting a car to hoon around in, but for lap times, there are much too many variables, and no it’s not just tires. 5 years ago the track was much less well known for lap times. Hell most manufacturers didn’t bother to go set a lap time. Even this post shows it. You can’t possibly compare the times of one company who hires a driver and rents the entire track to an event set up by an independent magazine who has a driver do one lap in one of the dozen cars they had that day. As an example, does anyone here actually think a zl1 is faster than a Lamborghini SV? Of course its not! The Camaro driver simply had MUCH much more time with the car and can likely know the track much better. This has got to stop, or to the very least, there should be one independent source who reports the data and has Sabine Shmitz as the driver of every single car. And please if any CT staff member reads this, please reconsider posting these headlines and stories, or what I suggest, is to make an article summarizing what I just said and having it as a link on every one of these lap record articles

06/30/2016 - 07:28 |
4 | 0
Anonymous

So let me get this straight, the 911 turbo is quicker than the GT3!?

06/30/2016 - 07:51 |
0 | 0
Felipe Pérez

The 997 turbo beated his fellow GT3 because of top speed right?

06/30/2016 - 10:53 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

The Turbo/GT3/Aventador/F430 is like:

06/30/2016 - 11:31 |
4 | 0
Antiprius

More importantly, the last gen Camaro ZL1 beat the Murcielago SV? I’m not even mad, that’s amazing.

06/30/2016 - 11:52 |
2 | 0
Kevin 15

GT-R is not dead yet, still it’s a beautiful performance by the Panamera tho.

06/30/2016 - 12:00 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

that said i would rather have any of the above!

06/30/2016 - 12:27 |
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Anonymous

I’d still have the SV….

06/30/2016 - 12:52 |
2 | 2
Lamborghini SV

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

me too. and the giulia

07/03/2016 - 15:32 |
4 | 0
America

But the GT350R…

07/01/2016 - 22:59 |
0 | 0