"Porsche's Skunkworks Built the Taycan Turbo GT" - Article

[Tooney]

The brief was essentially to build the ultimate EV, and no idea was too silly. It was to be a real skunkworks effort. The development team was small, and they answered only to Giek and Porsche’s board—no middle-management, no complex approvals process, almost unprecedented freedom to build.
. . .
The Turbo GT features a number of tweaks compared to the Taycan Turbo S. A new silicon-carbide inverter for the rear motor boosts total output to 1,092 horsepower when using launch control (1,019 hp with Attack Mode enabled, and 777 hp at all other times). The engineers saved a bit of weight by ditching luxuries like a power-opening charge door and soft-close passenger doors.

In the case of the Weissach-Package car, Porsche axed back seats entirely. Both the standard and Weissach Package car get a unique aero treatment, with the latter gaining a fixed rear wing. There’s unique 21-inch forged wheels, and the standard tires are Pirelli’s new P-Zero R, while the ultra-grippy Trofeo RS is optional. Also standard is Porsche Active Ride, the automaker’s brilliant active-suspension system, which all but eliminates pitch, roll, and dive (the system doesn’t compensate for tire deflection).

Extreme measures like the rear-seat delete or the addition of bespoke Trofeo RS tires wouldn’t happen if the Turbo GT was developed like a normal Porsche model.

“It’s a little bit crazy,” says Christian Müller, the Turbo GT’s chief engineer. “At the beginning, we were talking about ‘Okay, let’s take out this, and this, and this, and this. But it felt good to go in a radical way….you have to go one step further than the others.”
https://www.motor1.com/news/715238/porsche-taycan-turbo-gt-skunkworks-development/

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[iamai]

The brief was essentially to build the ultimate EV, and no idea was too silly. It was to be a real skunkworks effort. The development team was small, and they answered only to Giek and Porsche’s board—no middle-management, no complex approvals process, almost unprecedented freedom to build.
. . .
The Turbo GT features a number of tweaks compared to the Taycan Turbo S. A new silicon-carbide inverter for the rear motor boosts total output to 1,092 horsepower when using launch control (1,019 hp with Attack Mode enabled, and 777 hp at all other times). The engineers saved a bit of weight by ditching luxuries like a power-opening charge door and soft-close passenger doors.

In the case of the Weissach-Package car, Porsche axed back seats entirely. Both the standard and Weissach Package car get a unique aero treatment, with the latter gaining a fixed rear wing. There’s unique 21-inch forged wheels, and the standard tires are Pirelli’s new P-Zero R, while the ultra-grippy Trofeo RS is optional. Also standard is Porsche Active Ride, the automaker’s brilliant active-suspension system, which all but eliminates pitch, roll, and dive (the system doesn’t compensate for tire deflection).

Extreme measures like the rear-seat delete or the addition of bespoke Trofeo RS tires wouldn’t happen if the Turbo GT was developed like a normal Porsche model.

“It’s a little bit crazy,” says Christian Müller, the Turbo GT’s chief engineer. “At the beginning, we were talking about ‘Okay, let’s take out this, and this, and this, and this. But it felt good to go in a radical way….you have to go one step further than the others.”
https://www.motor1.com/news/715238/porsche-taycan-turbo-gt-skunkworks-development/

Weissach-Package GT is a compromised car that simply will cater only to a small population of mid-life crisis people with too much money on their hands.
That there are four doors but no seats and no speakers in the second row makes me say that.

 

[WasserGKuehlt]

“Set up Lab 16 underneath Werk 1. I want our top engineers working on removing the rear seats. Use the manual charge port cover. And get me a big fucking wing. I’ll run this off my private server.”

 

[n3ophyte]

So the “Skunkworks” department are simply experts at chucking stuff away? Apart from the silicon carbide inverter I don’t see anything novel in their efforts ?‍

 

[Tooney]

Weissach-Package GT is a compromised car that simply will cater only to a small population of mid-life crisis people with too much money on their hands.
That there are four doors but no seats and no speakers in the second row makes me say that.

Yes, better to cater to the majority of people with too much money on their hands...

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