Taycan the Lead
The Porsche Taycan in action at the Leadfoot Festival of Speed
Feb 1, 2018
The 2020 running of Kiwi-born racer Rod Millen’s Leadfoot Festival played host to Porsche’s stunning Taycan electric performance vehicle, in action for the first time on New Zealand tarmac.
At the wheel? None other than an antipodean F1 ace and a local Le Mans winner.
For those attending Rod and Shelly Millen’s Leadfoot Festival at the celebrated Leadfoot Ranch in Hahei, the visceral sound of V8s, rotaries and vintage muscle reverberating off the steep coastal hillsides as all manner of precious metal hoofs it up the ‘driveway’ hillclimb circuit as fast as man and machine can manage, is all part of the unforgettable experience.
The eighth running of the Leadfoot Festival (for the uninitiated, a weekend-long celebration of classic race cars, motorbikes and motorsport icons held every February) certainly delivered the goods.
Set among the sunburnt hills of the Coromandel Peninsula and showcasing its patented mix of both the sublime (Ross Clarke’s 1983 Group B Toyota Celica Turbo; Andy Booth’s 1977 Works Escort RS1800; Kurt Aikman’s 1987 Holden Commodore VL Brock-Mobil replica) and the insane (Jase Brown’s 650hp Nissan S13 Sylvia RWD; Ian Ffitch’s BRM 1000 Superquad), the 2020 Leadfoot Festival featured plenty of personalities behind the steering wheels and handle bars.
But one of the most talked-about cars of the weekend barely made a sound at all.
The 2020 Porsche Taycan – the German sportscar icon’s fascinating forthcoming electric performance car – was on-show for the first time in New Zealand. But more than simply automotive art on a plinth at the sumptuously appointed Porsche spectator pavilion, the specially imported left-hook Taycan Turbo was at Leadfoot to do what it does best: move with plenty of momentum.
And who better to pilot the Taycan on demo drives up the 1.6km-long track, then two talented wheelmen in their own right: nine-times Formula One Grand Prix winner, Mark Webber, and two-times 24 Hours of Le Mans winner, Earl Bamber?
The mid-range Taycan Turbo, along with the Taycan 4S and Taycan Turbo S, have to be one of the most hotly anticipated new arrivals of 2020, and a serious stake in the ground for the future of both Porsche itself and the electric vehicle revolution.
Making full use of the start line straight and flat-out first turn, threading the needle across the brickwork bridge and then making a beeline past the Black Barn up to the first proper twisties of the hillclimb circuit, Webber and Bamber deployed the Taycan Turbo’s full reserve of 500kW (680hp) in order to accelerates to 100km/h in a whisker over three seconds.
Top speeds are irrelevant on the snaking Leadfoot track, but the svelte Taycan looked like ice white mercury, sticking to the tarmac at speed under the sweltering New Zealand sun. The soundtrack might have been different, but the blur of ballistic bodywork among the trees of Leadfoot Ranch remained a sight that wowed the crowds.
From the super quick snapshot Messrs. Webber and Bamber gave us up the Hahei hillside, Porsche’s insistence that the Taycan is a Porsche first, electric vehicle second, certainly appears to ring true.