Porsche Panamera - first spy shots now available

Brenda Priddy (the prefessional spy) has the following to say about Porsche's new 4 door:

Winding Road - Best Shots Yet Of Porsche’s Panamera (click for more photos)

I reckon I'd prefer one of these:



Aston Rapide

Looks like the back seat will still be for midgets. That roofline sweeps down at a pretty severe angle.

The 4 doors look strange at first, but I think it's bad-ass.

Yup. And the car looks nice too.

The Panemera was originally going to have suicide doors..

Porsche continues its disturbing trend to be the worlds largest producer of Japanese cars outside of Japan.

Me too, but for the cost. Could buy the Porsche and a house for the price of an Aston

worth it if you get that bird along with it too, though.

Porsche, house, Aston, Bird...

Looks to me like she is the most expensive thing on the list

...never mind that she is fooling herself if she thinks that she is going to fit into the back seat of that car...

maybe she planning on lying down in the back.

True, she could lose a few kgs off the hips and ass... But its all good, after buying the car and the chick and the gas for the car who could afford to feed her too? You would squeeze her in there somehow eventually.

Sorry- but it looks crap!

If it's supposed to be a 4 seater cross-continent GT why does it have a stupid wing on the back like something out of the fast and the fuckwit?

Porsche are really the "emperor's new clothes" when it comes to car design. Granted the 911 is absolutely a classic design which they still successfully milk 40 years on (although they have the world's laziest stylists). The Boxter/Caymen is either more of the same or less of the same- can't decide.

The Cayenne is ugly as... well an ugly great 4x4. This joins it as being ungainly and stylistically confused.

It will still sell shedloads to the Maximillianstrasse Cafe Roma crowd tho...The Aston, the Quattroporte, 612 Scaglietti or even a Continental for me any day.

Side point- saw a lowered Cayenne the other day- I mean- WTF?

Unfortunately the SUV trend has become a tad stoopid. Arden Range Rover Sports for example:

I test drove a Cayenne just for fun earlier this year. Dealer gave it to me for the day, and I gave it back after an hour. Silly car. Very expensive and heavy as the QE2 - plus it drives a bit like a boat as well due to the excessive weight. Just not nice.

@Tim

The Panamera looks like the bastard child of an old 968 and a Saab 900i, still with the pram handle on.

Nice name tho...

It looks better in this rendition:


But I do admit, it's not for the Porsche purists...

I think once it's got all its disguise stuff off, it could look quite sharp...911 come 928 style. I wouldn't turn it down.

You are right. It does look much better there. Might take some of what I said back

Here are a couple more shots of the new Porsche

...oops, sorry, that is a 15 year old Subaru, my mistake...

And if I want a car that looks like this...

That is a nice looking motor. Wonder how it will be priced? I would take this over an M6 any day!

...then i will buy this:

You know, it's funny you say that, because every review of the Cayenne I have read praises the fuck out of it for being the best four wheel drive they have ever driven...
For instance, the Times Review, apart from bitching about it not being traditionally Porsche-esque, mentions things like :


and

But Tim, then you will be two doors short so it won't look like the first one!

But that is not a 4 door...

You might be able to, I couldn't afford any of them! So if I'm going to dream I'll dream about the Aston and the bird, not necessarily in that order!

Actually, the rendition that Tim posted looks pretty fricken sexy to me.

@Swedish Chef - well you know how it is, everyone has an opinion.

It did not help that they made me drive an automatic - which I hate - the power delivery on autos always makes me feel a bit ill. But they said no-one ever has manuals in these.

The problem is that the 4.5 litre engine is fighting to counteract the huge weight, and you cannot defy the physics. Nice comfy car I guess, but when you are looking at the wrong side of €100,000 it just doesn't seem to make any sense to me.

Nothing wrong with the Range Rover Sport. Have to say though, I would not put that bodykit (or any body at all on mine), it looks great the way it is!

the body kit is disgusting. does it come with a free hot wheels racing track too?
isnt calling all these grass and gravel cars 4X4 really an insult for serious off road machines?

If you read my post, you will see that I agree with you about the body kit. If you read the off road tests then you will see that they have an off road capability that is just below a Landrover (due to it not having the same huge ground clearance. In tests it beat the Landcruiser and everything else out there (except the Landrover)...now you can turn the table, in the cause of controversy, and say "whats the point of having a vehicle that spends 90% of its life on the road being so capable off road?"

canary man sorry missed the "yep" off the front of my post, i knew you hated the things. and rightly so cos they're a fucking joke. the range rover though is in a class of itself, always has been always should be and hopefully will be. it would be wrong to pile it into the X5 Toureg cheyanne class, but they are doing their damndest to get it in there. as to your second question, yes what are you doing with a car thats meant to be off road? i know the streets are bad sometimes but not that bad! although my next car will be a 110 if my wife lets me...

Well, Gideon. I purchased a new sports coupe when I first moved here. I put it over a metal barrier whilst coming off the autobahn in a blizzard at around 25-30kmh. The following year my wife was driving up a hill in a straight line and the rear wheels just started spinning and the tail end slid out. We lost confidence in the car (it had loads of faults fixed under warranty too) and decided that as we go to Austria every weekend in the winter, we would buy a 4wd. We cart a lot of stuff around and live out in the sticks (where the roads are diabolical in the winter) so decided on the RRS as it was the nicest to drive and has excellent off road ability.

I have to say I do not regret the decision to buy one as last year it came into its own on the ice and snow covered roads (It also slows my driving down as it is relaxing to drive, plus my dog likes it!)

i understand your reasons, native bavarians and austrian will laugh at you though for not being able to drive in snow or being able to whack chains on while still smoking a cigarette. but they are a bit odd sometimes

I don't mind that. I was laughing at them last year as I drove down the country roads to Austria (autobahn was stationary). I saw a Cayenne with 4 snow chains on, BMW X5s with snow chains on the front wheels, etc,etc. I had snow tyres on and it gripped like a dream. I made sure that I grinned at everyone that I overtook. (much to my wifes annoyance). That will teach em to buy a Soft Roader instead of the real thing (and hopefully encourage them to buy snow tyres!!)

By the way, my wife brought a magazine off one of the planes that said (in German). "The VW Touraeg is the twin of the Cayenne but it is nowhere near as good. The Touraeg is for poor customers". Nice bit of motoring journalism, eh?

class.
i've got this image of a range rover going down a snow covered autobahn with a union jack flying, land of hope and glory blazing on the stero and the driver sticking twos up to every other mongrel in an SUV.

We shall assume you do not read any Clarkson features then?

come on what did he say...

Just saying that Clarkson does not pull any punches when he writes, so just saying that the VW is the poor relation is chicken shit for Clarkson. He is far ruder than that.

The article did not say that the VW is a poor relation. It said, according to my wife, that the VW is for "poor customers"!!!

I quite like your image of me!!! During the world cup, I had to go to Munich airport regularly, to pick my wife up. On one visit there were a load of people in suits looking miserable so I drove past, St George flag flying, blasting out "Land of Hope and Glory". They all seemed to "get it", burst out laughing and gave me the thumbs up sign! I think it gave them something to talk about in the pub ("mad Englishman in a car like the queen, etc etc)

I assume you are referring to George Michael's range rover?

often seen parked outside a larged wooded area or a public toilet!

Anna Kournikova has a RRS (but unfortunately does not share it with me )

Why did they name it after a Cuban Song?

The Carrera Panamerica was an extremely dangerous road race that used to be run in Mexico. I believe porsche won it once , maybe more times, which is why some Porsche models are called Carreras, and presumably Panamera comes from this as well.

I like the red one, but the other pics are just downright heinous. Think we'll stick with the Cayman in the spring.

Better gas mileage <laughs>