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The German sports car maker Porsche finally has something to brag about when it comes to ‘Ring times. When John Heinricy piloted a Cadillac CTS-V around the Nordschleife in 7 minutes and 59 seconds it officially gave General Motors the title of having the fastest four door to conquer the Green Hell. However, the title no longer belongs to America, it is now the German’s time to shine. Porsche’s test driver was able to complete the 12.9 mile circuit behind the wheel of a Panamera Turbo in just 7 minutes and 56 seconds. The luxury four seater bested the pride of General Motors by a full three seconds. The Porsche Panamera Turbo is powered by a 4.8 Liter turbocharged V8 that makes 500 HP and 516 lb-ft of torque that make the new Porsche sprint from 0 to 60 MPH in 4.2 seconds in just 4.0 seconds with the with the Sports Chrono mode enabled, and hit a top speed of 188 MPH. This is good news since the last time the words Porsche and Nurburgring were in the same sentence, the name Nissan wasn’t too far off. This is even bigger because news because it comes on the heels of the recently released in car video evidence of Toshio Suzuki setting the 7 minute 26 second record that the German automaker demanded as proof. Now the video doesn’t show what kind of tires are on the car, but we’re sure all that was well documented. .
15 comments: Porsche Panamera laps Nurburgring in 7:56 Sorry, I thought you were talking about a making completely new engine. Boring it out is probably what they’ll do. True, M5 buyers are probably not-budget minded per say, but there won’t be many M5 buyers when they can get a faster car for 20K less.  Hence why I said the displacement should be bored out to 5.5 or 6L. The engine can be bored out without substancial expense on the existing engine. More power can be tweaked from the 5L V10 but the 395lb-ft torque is the max you will get from a 5L displacement. Besides I don’t think BMW buyers are budget minded. The Z06 by the way got 7.42. Besides, I don’t trust GM’s claim of 7:59 for the CTS-V anyway after the ZR1 ran it in 7:44 but they told us that it got 7:26, as the driver conveniently "forgot" to set the clock 18 seconds into it.
True, the M5’s handling is "more than adequate" as is, but that might change with much more torque. In addition, turbochargers or a bigger engine would only make the M5 more expensive, and its already $20,000 over the CTS-V. What BMW needs to do is work just a little more power out of the existing engine, which, given its handing advantage, should be enough to put it ahead of the Cadillac on any road course.
If the M5 is to beat the CTS-V’s lap time, it needs turbos or at least a 6L displacement for more torque. While 395lb-ft is more than enough for daily driving, more torque would be useful on a big car like the M5 in carrying it through corners without using more gearshifts. Handling is more than adequate and probably better than the CTS-V and the Panamera. It just lacks in the power department.
 I cant wait for the 550 hp M5 to come out and the driver is horst von saurma from a german magazine or something apparantly BMW doesnt like having one of there pro drivers run the nurburgring so they let others do it Very strange
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Posted on
04.27.2010 @ 21:03