Mercedes, Porsche, or Polestar: Who Makes the Best GT?
Does an EV or a hybrid make for a better GT car than one powered by internal combustion?
For a car to be considered a Grand Tourer, or GT, it needs to combine performance with luxury so the driver can cover long distances with speed and comfort. These have traditionally been spacious cars, with gobs of power that can keep going for as long as the driver’s bladder can hold out. Tradition is being challenged, however, as the automotive world begins to offer more hybrid and EV models. Can this new technology really make for a better GT than the tried and true gasoline power car? Via their YouTube channel, the folks at Autocar aim to answer just that.
Representing old fashioned gasoline power is the Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S 4-door. This beauty is a beast with a 4.0L twin-turbo V8 producing 630 horsepower. This is enough motive force to push the car to 60 mph from a dead stop in just a tick over 3 seconds, and on to a top speed just shy of 200 mph. Provided you aren’t running at Vmax it will travel 400 miles between fill-ups and those fill-ups will take less time than reading this article. The interior is also perfectly suited for the job. “Its got a very spacious, luxurious and pleasant interior. The kind of place you can very happily while away a few hundred miles on the autoroute if you so choose,” says presenter Matt Saunders.
So, things start off looking pretty good for the Mercedes, and we haven’t even mentioned the one area where it has perhaps the largest advantage over the other two and that is the sound. Even though the turbos muffle it a bit, the V8 in the GT 63 S sounds glorious. The Polestar and the Porsche don’t even come close. The Mercedes even has “GT” right in its name, so it is going to take something special to top it as the best modern GT in this price range.
Enter the Polestar 1. The Mercedes has been out for a couple of years, but the Polestar is just starting to become available. It features a stunning modern design both inside and out. The powertrain is a hybrid setup with a 2.0 4-cylinder gas-powered combustion engine that is both turbocharged and supercharged. This is supplemented with three electric motors which combine for 591 horsepower and a diesel truck rivaling 738 lb-ft of torque. Despite the power, the weight penalty makes the car about a second slower to 60 mph than the bonkers Mercedes.
The hybrid powertrain is advanced and certainly helps with fuel economy and can be driven for miles using only the battery power. So, it has a beautiful design and strong performance, but it just isn’t that exciting. “So given this is Polestars first go at a car like this, I would say the handling and powertrain are massively impressive, but they are just a bit unemotional,” says road tester Ricky Lane.
Now, welcome to the future, the Porsche Taycan Turbo S. While the Polestar can run on battery power for periods of time, the Taycan is a full EV. This is where the future lies, and the future is bright. “It is a 2.3-ton car that goes and steers and handles and stops and drives like no other 2.3-ton car you have ever been anywhere near,” says Saunders. It is the quickest of the three cars here, hitting 60 mph in the high two-second range. Dynamically the Taycan is just better than the Polestar 1 or GT 63 S but is it the best GT? It does have one significant drawback. Its range is only about 200 miles and will take anywhere between 40 minutes and 1.5 hours to charge back up. In that amount of time, the Mercedes could be two states away.
The range and charging time may damage the GT car credentials of the Taycan but it does nothing to diminish its overall excellence. As Saunders says, “It is a great car nonetheless, and it is so much better to drive than either of the other two, it’s incredible.” In this battle, the Porsche comes out on top.
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