Four-Door Demon

The new Porsche Panamera looks like a sedan and drives like a 911.

By Jason H. Harper Bloomberg Markets, September 2009

Brian is six-foot-eight, and he’s sitting in the back seat of a Porsche sports car. He spreads his legs, flashes a goofy grin and pronounces himself comfortable. He even has extra headroom. And they all live happily ever after. The End.

Yet no, this isn’t a fairy tale. My friend Brian is basketball-player tall, and he did have extra room in the back of the Porsche Panamera.

The Panamera is Porsche SE’s first-ever four-door car. (The company shuns the word sedan.) As we’ve learned recently, car companies must change or die. So you’ll get no outcry from me about Porsche selling out its heritage. Why not a four-door Porsche?

After all, Porsche’s best-selling vehicle is the five- passenger Cayenne SUV. The Cayenne, however, is no sports car like the storied 911. The Panamera is intended to fill a niche between those two lines; it’s a nimble gran turismo that seats four real adults and even has a hatchback for ample stowage.

The Panamera will be available in mid-October and comes in three variants: the $89,800 S, the $93,800 all-wheel-drive 4S and the $132,600 Turbo (also AWD). Porsche’s options are always costly, so with add-ons, those prices will leap.

The company expects to sell 20,000 units a year. Porsche says the Panamera will compete with the Mercedes S-Class, BMW 7 Series and Audi A8, though it has a significantly shorter wheelbase than those models.

On a recent trip to Germany, I got a chance to drive all three models.

The Panamera hovers over the road, low and wide, and both the upright seating position and the view out the windshield are similar to those in a 911. The interior is the best I’ve ever seen in a Porsche, with beautiful leather and meticulous stitching.

Because of the bulbous rear, the bucket seats in the back offer good head- and legroom and a decent view despite small, curved side windows. Though the rear doors are modest, ingress and egress are reasonably easy. No S-Class, certainly, but it’s not a bat cave either.

Does it drive like a Porsche? Bombing down the autobahn in a 4S at 163 miles (262 kilometers) per hour, the car sits steady, with nary a tremble or an iffy moment. The front of a 911 can get light at those speeds, so this is good news. The car reaches warp speed even though it’s stuffed with heavy gear and three big guys.

I point the snout toward the foothills of the Alps. Again, the sensation is familiar. The Panamera is bigger and heavier than the purebred 911, yet it still drives very much like a Porsche.

Anyway, does your four-door have 500 horsepower and do zero to 60 mph in 4 seconds? Those are the stats for the Turbo, powered by a 4.8-liter twin-turbo V-8.

While that giddy power is fun when bursting around a slower Fiat (or BMW or Mercedes), the Turbo is difficult to drive smoothly. The optional ceramic-carbon brakes have too much bite for regular motoring, and the extra power from the twin turbos kicks in rather suddenly. In addition, the Turbo’s first few degrees of steering are hazy; a minibeat passes before the turn actually commences.

If this were my fairy tale, I’d opt for the middle-priced bowl of porridge, the 4S, and save the extra $39,000. It has a V-8 with 400 hp and makes 60 mph in 4.8 seconds, with a top speed of 175 mph.

Goldilocks would call it just right for hard back-road roaring, particularly when equipped with the Sports Chrono package engaged in Sport Plus mode.

Stateside, the Panamera is available only with Porsche’s new PDK double-clutch system, which can be left in automatic or shifted using the maddening, Porsche-specific, steering-wheel-mounted button system, a substitute for the traditional paddles.

While official mileage numbers aren’t in yet, efficiency measures include a function that temporarily stops the engine at traffic lights, as well as direct injection in the engine, which improves fuel efficiency.

Which brings us to the body of the Panamera. The designers had to make it look like a Porsche, yet while the 911’s rounded rear proportions make sense, they seem peculiar in the Panamera.

I like the hood and enjoy the three-quarter perspective. The bubble butt, despite good-looking taillights, gives me pause. Nonetheless, the car has presence, and it’s definitely a Porsche, inside and out.

More choices for Porsche lovers? That’s a Cinderella moment.

Jason H. Harper writes about autos for Bloomberg News in New York. jason@jasonhharper.com

#<535521.2245115.1.1.37.18785.811># -0- Aug/04/2009 12:58 GMT