I love the big, through-cabin console with its switches arrayed like the stripes on a sergeant's sleeve. Among the hundredweight of amenities are things such as a second navigation display embedded in the instrument panel and an optional Burmester audiophile sound system, a 1,000-watt, 16-channel/speaker unit that is the best road-going audio I've ever heard.
The damned car is magnificent. But it is not made of the same charmed isotopes as the 911, and therefore is not a Porsche. Sorry.
Ironically, the company's determination to have the Panamera received as a true Porsche has led to the car's greatest downfall: its exterior styling. Or is that a pratfall? If you look closely, you'll see that styling chief Michael Mauer has essentially taken the front and rear of a 911 and rudely grafted two sets of sedan doors in between. I understand this was done in the name of brand continuity, to retain the styling vocabulary of Porsche, in which there is real equity. But, jeez, this isn't styling -- this is some kind of weird enlargement surgery you go to South America for.
We've been here before. When Porsche introduced the Cayenne sport utility vehicle seven years ago, the company turned itself inside out explaining how a 5,600-pound SUV with a two-speed transfer case was spiritual heir to a 917 Long Tail. But it turned out that it really didn't matter. The Porsche SUV turned out to be the heresy that everyone was looking for, and the Cayenne became Porsche's bestselling model. Like the Cayenne, the Panamera is vital to Porsche's long-term profitability and plans for expansion -- and, one assumes, the ultimate goal of taking over VW, the minnow swallowing the whale.
The company expects to build 20,000 Panameras a year at its Leipzig, Germany, assembly hall.
The base model is the rear-drive Panamera S ($89,900); then there's the all-wheel-drive 4S ($93,000) and the Turbo ($132,600). All U.S.-spec cars will be equipped with the exquisite seven-speed, double-clutch PDK gearbox. Within a year Porsche will offer a V6 base model and -- brace yourself, Sunshine -- a hybrid version.
Also like the Cayenne, the Panamera is laced into a sports car corset with an astonishing ligature of adaptive damping, optional air suspension, active aerodynamics, active anti-roll bars and all manner of traction and stability assists, as well as anti-lock and anti-fade braking technologies. This thing runs on silicon as much as petroleum. The adaptive air suspension, for instance, enables drivers to raise the car an inch to get in and out of driveways; it also enables the car to squat down an inch in Sport Plus mode, for better cornering stability and lower aero-drag.
