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 Skepticism.That
seems to be the universal reaction
to the fact that Porsche is producing a four-door sedan.
"I'll reserve
my judgment until I see the car, actually, until I drive the car,"
is a typical response after hearing about the new, 2010 Porsche Panamera
Gran Turismo.
Hey, we all know
Porsche builds amazing sports cars, cars such as the venerable 911, the
Boxster roadster, the Cayman coupe, and not so long ago the incredible
Carrera GT supercar. But a four-door sedan? A car that can seat adults
in its back seats? A car with a trunk large enough to hold four suitcases?
Sounds like some sort of stretched 911, a mish-mashed machine with the
engine at the wrong end.
As I said - skepticism.
But wait, we've been
down this road before, haven't we? There was the same reaction when Porsche
announced it was going to build a sport utility vehicle, the Cayenne,
and all it did in that case was to create a vehicle that put the sport
into sport utility, a vehicle capable of lapping the Nuburgring faster
than many so-called sports cars, and it sold so many of them that it saved
a company that was on the verge of having sell itself to stay in business.
Oh, your skeptic
mind responds, so this Panamera is just a Cayenne without the cargo capacity,
a sporty sedan but, let's face it, not a real sports car that happens
to have second-row seating.
I don't blame the
skeptics. I was one myself, reserving my judgment until I saw the car,
actually, until I drove the car. Which I have. And just as they did with
the Cayenne, Porsche's engineers have shown that they can build vehicles
with four doors that feel, that react, that run and respond like sports
cars, and that do it while providing all the accoutrements expected by
luxury-class customers.
And so the Panamera
can be equipped with rear seats that are heated and cooled and recline,
and with a rear-seat video entertainment system, and with a 1000-watt
Burnemaster audio system, and with your choice of five wood trims, or
brushed aluminum or carbon fiber, and with a yachting blue and cream leather
interior, and someone 6-foot-6 can sit comfortably in the back seat…
even while the car is being flogged around a racetrack, tires squealing,
exhaust roaring, brakes grasping and as much as 500 twin-turbocharged
horses thrusting you out of the corner.
Or, you can simply
drive the car in the same way as its primary competitors are driven, back
and forth to the office or the country club or the second home in the
mountains or on the beach. By the way, those primary competitors are the
Mercedes-Benz S-Class, the BMW 7 Series and the Audi A8, and especially
in their AMG, M and S-line versions.
Though really, the
Panamera is as unlike even those high-performance versions as the Cayenne
is unlike those other German automakers' SUVs or as the Boxster and Cayman
are unlike their sports cars. In many ways, the Panamera is more like
Porsche's own 911, a class until itself.
In fact, the Panamera
looks like a 911, especially when seen from the front or back, and the
sedan's silhouette, especially the roofline, looks like you took the 911
and stretched it. Designers tried to transfer much of the topography of
the 911 to the new car, and they did, though Porschephiles will need some
time to get used to the proportions of a car that rides on a 115-inch
wheelbase.
But the Panamera
is low and wide, 4.2 inches taller and 5.2 inches wider than the 911.
It also has a low center of gravity with its seats positioned low in the
car, like those in the 911, and despite that sloping roofline, there's
plenty of headroom, even for taller drivers and passengers, in front of
back. In fact, says Porsche, there's as much headroom in the back seat
of the Panamera as there is in the S-Class.
The 2010 Panamera
is available in three versions: S, which starts at $89,800; 4S, base price
$93,800; and Turbo, $132,600. All come with power sunroofs, navigation
systems, Bi-Xenon headlamps and other features that usually are optional
equipment in a Porsche.
All also come with
Porsche's PDK double-clutch seven-speed transmission. In the rear-driven
S and all-wheel-driven 4S, the gearbox is liked to a 400-horsepower, 4.8-liter
V8. In the Turbo, you get all-wheel drive plus twin turbochargers that
boost the engine's output to 500 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque.
But by making the
car light and efficient, the S and 4S are rated at 16 miles per gallon
in city driving and 24 on the highway while the Turbo earns 15/23 figures
- and there is no gas guzzler tax on any of the three models.
By the way, those
figures were earned without using the start/stop feature: Push a button
on the center console (no complicated iDrive sort of mouse system in the
Panamera; just nice, simple push button controls) and you engage a start/stop
feature that halts the engine anytime the car comes to a stop. The engine
re-engages as soon as you release the brake pedal; and the air conditioning
and other systems continue to function even when the engine isn't running.
The typical driver's savings from this system should be around half a
mile per gallon.
Like other Porsches,
the Panamera gets all of the latest Porsche active suspension and dynamic
chassis control and traction management systems, and introduces a new
air suspension system that adjusts each spring individually to dynamic
driving demands.
Also new is a marvelous
- and mechanical -- door hinge system that instead of the usual three
or so detents allows you to open the door to any position and it stays
there - even on hills - until you want to move it to a more open or closed
position.
The Panamera even
can be equipped with the Porsche Sports Chrono Package with a lap time
for those days you take it to the racetrack, like we did at its press
introduction at Road America, the historic four-mile, 14-turn road racing
circuit in Wisconsin, where the car showed how comfortable it could be
on the drive out from Milwaukee and how competitive it could be driven
as we flogged it around the track.
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