Was it WC Fields or George Best who memorably claimed “to have spent half of my money on gambling, alcohol and wild women, but squandered the rest”? Right now I can’t remember - but something that happened on the press launch of the facelifted Porsche Taycan reminded me of it.
It’s not often that a car maker reveals exactly how the budget for any given model facelift has been spent when introducing it to gathered hacks. In the revised Taycan’s case, however, we were indeed told. Exactly a quarter went on extending the car’s electric range, it transpires, and a little over a quarter on extending its performance. Everything else, it seems - from exterior styling, to interior equipment, snazzy new decals and natty alloy wheels - got quite a lot less cash investment.
It may be that all-new model derivatives, like the one Porsche has just added right at the top of the Taycan range, the Turbo GT, come with their own development budget, of course. Even so, it’s amusing to think that, in substitution of the aforementioned notable expenses of that famous libertarian line, we might well count the carbonfibre wings, carbon-ceramic brakes and ultra-sticky Pirelli Trofeo RS tyres of this all-new super-Taycan among things unlikely to boost the range or efficiency of a revised electric car. If you’ve seen photos of the Turbo GT already, though, you’ll no doubt agree that somehow they're very clearly worth having in any case.
Aside from that new, near-1100bhp, ultra-high-performance derivative, however, the Porsche Taycan has certainly received some key mechanical and technical improvements, which we’ll go on to explore here. The 2019 version was codenamed J1 by Porsche; this revised version is referred to as J1.2 - and it can be expected to extend the lifecycle of the car way out towards the end of this decade.
