Crazy. That’s the only word that works for this weeks’ road test review. Unless you go for mad.

The Porsche Taycan Turbo GT with Weissach package is crazy in so many ways.

It has crazy purple paint. A crazy $400,000-plus price-tag. A crazy cabin where the back seat has been sacrificed for carbon fibre flash.
And then there is the 0-100km/h sprint time. It’s 2.2 seconds.

The ultimate in straight-line Porsche performance, quicker even than the petrol-powered Turbo and GT3 road rocket, is also peak EV at the German carmaker in 2026.

There is nothing that comes close if your number one buying criteria is straight-line sprinting.

The Turbo GT Weissach – named after Porsche’s test centre in Germany –  can also go around corners like a racecar, thanks to super-grippy Michelin tyres and concentration of the car’s weight down low in the battery pack. It also has extortionately large disc brakes that work great.

But what’s the point?

That’s the question that came to me every day during my time with the monster Taycan.

Why take a smoothly swift four-door family EV and turn it into something so purple and preposterous? Why sacrifice excellent comfort and a roomy cabin for a pair of bare-bones sports bucket seats? And why spend so much on something so … unique?

The answer, of course, is because you can.

It’s a good reason if you have other sensible cars in the garage, or if you want to be green and electric but still hyper quick. And there will be people who crave the car, because otherwise Porsche would not have built it.

And, of course, it excels in many ways.

The claimed range is 512 kilometres, provided you drive sensibly, and it showed during my driving that it could hit the target. It can also be super-smooth in traffic, quiet and enjoyable on a freeway cruise, and is beautifully finished and super-well equipped with carbon fibre and leather and a great sound system and air-conditioning.

So, what about that 2.2-second sprint time.

As it turned out, I never did a full-speed, launch control start in the car with the Taycan’s Attack Mode engaged. There was not enough space without a speed limit, because 110 comes up ridiculously quickly and the top end stops at 305.

Just pushing hard on the accelerator in Sport Plus mode was enough. It feels like the simulated Warp Speed acceleration in the Star Trek series, and is enough to leave your brain behind and re-arrange your internal organs.

Passengers, and I took a few, were left laughing manically but never asked for a second shot.

It’s far better to dip occasionally into the slingshot mode, for overtaking in tight sports or an occasional smile ride at the lights.

Just days after I returned the car there was more news on the performance front. Porsche has added shift paddles for ‘virtual gear changes’ – the same idea as the Hyundai Ionic 5 N – and ‘electric sport sound’, both intended to make it more like a combustion car. The infotainment system also tweaked with AI voice control and there is a Manthey

So, is the Taycan Turbo GT Weissach a smart choice and good buying? Not by any objective assessment, but it is an automotive unicorn and there will be people who crave nothing else.

PORSCHE TAYCAN TURBO GT with WEISSACH PACKAGE

Price: from $417,000
Position: four-door electric sports sedan
Engine: 580kW/1240Nm.
Gearbox: single-speed auto, all-wheel drive
Range: 512km
Safety: not tested

The tick: a costly unicorn