BASE PASSIONS

Are you one of those marque enthusiasts who reckons a Porsche isn’t a ‘proper’ Porsche unless it’s rear-wheel drive? If so, say hello to the first Taycan observing your preference for power pushing from the back. Save for the 911 and its Carrera nameplate, as with every other current Porsche model range, there’s no trim identifier on the base-spec Taycan — you simply settle for the standard Taycan script at the rear. And, while our strangely coloured Zuffenhausen-supplied demonstrator looks a lot like the Taycan 4S (which landed in 2019 ready for the 2020 model year), what makes this new base model stand out from the crowd is the fact it’s propelled by a single electric motor. The unit is mounted on the rear axle, along with its attendant two-speed reduction-gear transmission, resulting in the Porsche purist’s first choice: rear-wheel drive.

Does this mean we’re looking at the Taycan of choice for the true driving enthusiast? Maybe. You see, there’s another attribute on the side of the rear-driven Taycan: its relative paucity of motors makes it the lightest variant of the all-electric Porsche to date. Specified as the boggo Taycan Performance Battery (PB) and offered from £70,690, the model tips scales at just