A diesel sedan from... Porsche? What has the world come to? Following in the wake of the diesel Cayenne, Stuttgart's finest is meeting demand in Europe – where an oil-burning offering is a must – with a diesel Panamera.

The four-door gets a Porsche-tuned version of Volkswagen's 3.0-liter common-rail turbo-diesel (packing variable-vane turbochargers just like the 911 Turbo), here producing 247 horsepower but a far more prodigious 406 lb-ft of torque – similar to the Cayenne diesel's output, but tuned for delivery over a wider band.

Mated to an eight-speed automatic with stop-start capability, that's enough to drive this latest Panamera variant to 62 miles per hour in 6.8 seconds. Which isn't bad for a diesel, but what Porsche is emphasizing is the car's range of 745 miles from a full tank of fuel. That's enough juice to drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco and back, blissfully whizzing by every gas station along the way.

This isn't something Porsche drivers here in North America would be accustomed to, but that's just as well, as the Panamera Diesel isn't likely to land on these shores anytime soon.