Porsche Panamera Gran Turismo –When You’ve Tried Everything Else
Imagine this! – You are a very successful businessman, and are the leader of a large corporation. In you life, you have always been at the top of the heap, and you have gone through a series of luxury cars such as the likes of the BMW 7 Series, and Mercedes S Class. You are looking for another car to buy, but you don’t want another BMW or a Mercedes, because everybody has one. You would be considering the alternatives, such as Audi, Jaguar, Maserati, and others as well. Now, you can have another alternative added to the list, and this is none other than the Porsche Panamera.
The Porsche Panamera, is in all ways a Porsche – the difference is that it has four doors, and can seat four people in full, luxurious comfort. In fact the Panamera is Porsche’s bid at grabbing a share of a market it has hitherto not had any share of.
The Porsche 911 has been Porsche’s most successful model, with a shape that has evolved into an icon over the past 60 years. Building on this success, Porsche has designed the Panamera using the design cues and lines from the 911, but has stretched the wheelbase somewhat to accommodate additional rear seats. In case you are wondering, the engine has is located at the front, and is the powerful 400 horsepower 4.8 litre V8 currently found in the Cayenne.
Buyers will have a choice of a 6-speed manual or a 7-speed automatic featuring the
PDK Porsche-Doppelkupplungsgetriebe which is the German version of dual clutch.
Equipped with this transmission, the Panamera S sets a new standard in acceleration and fuel economy, Porsche’s Gran Turismo reaching 100 km/h from a standing-start without the slightest interruption of power in just 5.4 seconds and consuming a mere 10.8 litres/100 kilometres (equal to 26.2 mpg imp) in the EU5 standard (CO2: 253 g/km). Top speed with PDK is 283 km/h or 175 mph, top speed with manual gearbox an even more impressive 285 km/h or 177 mph.
The Panamera 4S, which is a 4WD version to be introduced later, also features a 4.8-litre V8 developing maximum output of 400 bhp. Power transmission in this case comes as standard with PDK and PTM Porsche Traction Management for innovative, active all-wheel drive front and rear. Benefiting from the supreme traction provided in this way, the Panamera 4S accelerates from a standstill to 100 km/h in just 5.0 seconds and reaches a top speed of 282 km/h or almost 175 mph. Fuel consumption, according to the EU5 standard is 11.1 ltr/100 km or 25.4 mpg imp, CO2 emissions are 260 g/km.
The top model in the range is the Panamera Turbo offering a maximum output of 500 bhp from its 4.8-litre V8 with bi-turbo technology. Again, power is transmitted in all cases by the Porsche-Doppelkupplungsgetriebe and PTM likewise featured as standard. This truly supreme Gran Turismo accelerates to 100 km/h in 4.2 seconds and has a top speed of 303 km/h or 188 mph. Standard fuel consumption of the Panamera Turbo is 12.2 litres/100 km, equal to 23.2 mpg imp, with CO2 emissions of 286 g/km. When activated on models equipped with the optional Sport Chrono Package and PDK, Launch Control improves acceleration from a standstill to 100 km/h on all models by another 0.2 seconds for even more dynamic performance.
The Panamera is to be launched in early September 2009; customers will have to book their units through Porsche dealers worldwide, and wait for the car to be made and delivered. As a special customer service, you can take delivery of your Panamera directly from the Porsche factory in Leipzig, Germany; for overseas customers, you can do the same, and go for a driving holiday in Europe, after which the kind people at Porsche will box it and ship it back to your home country.
Every Panamera is exclusive, in the sense that you can actually select the specifications, the trim colour and materials, engine and transmission, wheel size, brakes, sound system, and even down to the type of stitching you would like on your seats. In other words you can personalize your car to whatever suits your fancy, and according to the people at the plant in Leipzig, every request, no matter how outlandish, can be considered, if you can pay the price.
As the lone media participant from Malaysia this time around, it was a lonely flight all by myself from KLIA to Frankfurt. Arriving in the wee hours of the morning, I had to walk through half of the huge airport complex to catch a connecting flight to Stuttgart, arriving there at 10.00 am. The hotel they had arranged was conveniently just across the road from the terminal, and after a quick shower, our host brought me and two journalists from Taiwan to Metzingen, a popular shopping paradise for branded goods sold at warehouse prices. Discounts of up to 70 percent on banded goods like Hugo Boss, Esprit, Nike and many other world brands were available; but of course the discounts are for out of season stuff, and the good stuff is still very expensive. I didn’t buy anything, but the experience was good.
On day two, it was a short bus ride to the Porsche museum; we arrived at 8.50 am, but had to wait because the officious-looking staff would not let us in, even though we had the Porsche PR staff with us. I used the 10 minutes to take some pictures of the huge complex, a modern structure that is in itself a work of art. There are four levels, and hundreds of exhibits that tell the history of the Porsche brand from the beginning until present day. It is here that I learnt that Porsche also made tractors, and today, these little tractors have become collectors’ items. The exhibits are very interesting, but there is so much to tell, that I have another separate story on that here on this site. For visitors to Stuttgart, the museum is a ‘must visit’ location, especially if you like cars. It is strategically located very near the airport, and a train station is located just next to the entrance. There is also a restaurant in the museum so you can easily spend your whole day there.
After the most wonderful tour through the museum, it was a drive around the Stuttgart countryside in two units of the Porsche Panamera. The people at Porsche aren’t very secretive about the car, even though it had not been launched yet at the time that we were there, and openly displayed the car at the front of the museum for all to see, and on the road drive, we received admiring glances and open-mouthed stares from many other users of the road.
What started out as a drive for two cars soon turned out to be every car for itself, as the other one, with the Korean journalists got lost on the farmland roads outside of the city; the map provided did not have a scale big enough for us to see enough details, and the GPs was the only thing we could rely on. With numerous stops for photography, and heavy traffic on the country roads, we had to cut the journey short by half an hour in order to get back to the airport on time to get to Leipzig so that we could visit the factory the next day.
The Panamera drives like all Porsches do – great handling, enormous power, and first class luxury all round. Being designed as a Gran Turismo (Grand Touring), the ride is made more compliant. The car does roll a little more than the 2-door coupes and sports cars from the Porsche stables, but if I were to choose a car to tour Europe, this would be it. It is a fine line drawn between a good ride and sporty handling, and the Panamera is set up on the comfortable side of firm. Overall handling is still exemplary, just as the Porsche designers wanted it. We had two models, the turbo and the non-turbo versions to be driven; however, the other party went off the designated path, and so we were stuck with the turbo for the entire drive, a situation that didn’t bother me one little bit.
The next day, we went to visit the Porsche factory in Leipzig, where the Panamera is built alongside the Cayenne, and there we also had the opportunity to test drive other models, but that is another story. All I can say in the confines of this short piece is that it is a truly a modern, state-of-the-art facility with a 3.7 kilometre test track, and many innovative systems – your Panamera is built in one of the best facilities in the world.
The diehard Porsche lover, i.e., those who love the familiar frog-like shape of the 911 that has remained basically unchanged for 60 years, probably will not go for the Panamera; unless he or she already has one of those, and needs to buy another for his business use. The Panamera will never replace the 911, and it was never meant to be. In fact, the Panamera is built to appeal to a new market of top company executives who want a sporty limousine for business usage. The Panamera would have been launched officially in Germany by now; the Malaysian launch is scheduled for 3 October. Prices are not available as yet.
