Porsche Panamera in motion
evo samples the Panamera at Porsche's Weissach R&D test track
By John Simister
19th March 2009
Maybe
it does look like a squashed Cayenne. But even the new Panamera,
Porsche's long-promised four-door saloon-that's-actually-a-hatchback,
doesn't stretch credibility quite the way the SUV did. Porsche can
laugh off the purists' Cayenne aversion anyway, for it has openly
admitted the lofty beast is the company's cash cow.
Will the Panamera enjoy similar success? Now is not the financial
climate in which to make such judgments, but if what the Panamera does
and the way it does it have anything to do with the outcome, then
Porsche can be smug once again.
The Panamera is a revelation, nothing less. At least it seems that way
from any of the three passenger seats, because we won't be driving it
until June. However, several laps of Porsche's very three-dimensional,
dipping-and-diving test track at its Weissach R&D centre offered a
good opening shot.
evo has sampled two Panamerae, the upper versions of the
initially three-model range. All three have 4.8-litre V8 engines
derived from those used in the Cayenne but lightened with many
magnesium components instead of aluminium ones. Power is 400bhp for the
atmospheric version, 500bhp for the Turbo which also has the
possibility of overboost for a few seconds, increasing power and torque
by around 10 per cent. Peak steady-state torque for the Turbo is 516lb
ft.
The entry-level Panamera (£72,266 when it goes on UK sale in September)
has rear-wheel drive. The cars we tried were both four-wheel drive, the
4S (£77,269) and the Turbo (£95,298). Most of the torque goes to the
rear wheels most of the time but it's possible, briefly, for all of it
to flow to the front if the rear wheels find themselves gripless. A
shaft runs from the centre differential forwards and slightly downwards
to the front differential via a 'beveloid' gear; the front diff is
built into the engine's crankcase and the left-hand front driveshaft
passes within a whisker of a crankshaft counterweight.
You can have a six-speed manual but Porsche expects most Panameras to
contain seven-speed PDK gearboxes as fitted to our two test cars. The
full gamut of dual-rate air suspension, active damping, active
anti-roll bars and Porsche's usual Stability Management and Sport Plus
settings is available in the Panamera, as you would expect.
So, lap one in the 4S, belted into the front passenger seat. I'm hemmed
in by a high centre tunnel with rows of switches along each edge,
giving direct access to functions you'd have to dig for in a BMW
iDrive. More such switches appear in a roof console. It's like a flight
deck.
The engine fires up with an exhalation of energy, but there's no fancy
sound-valving in the exhaust system because Porsche says an engine
should simply sound like what it is. We start off in Comfort mode, with
first gear slurring into to second in luxury-car fashion. First gear is
very short-legged, but both it and second can be engaged simultaneously
in a double-clutch transmission such as this one, and at traffic speeds
the clutches can slip and actually let two gears briefly carry drive at
the same time. This smooths the transition between them and makes the
Panamera seem less 'busy'.
The ride, with both chambers of each air springs operating, is smooth
and pillowy but accurately controlled. The notion of a Porsche as a
device of waftability is an odd one, but the Panamera performs the role
very well.
Now lap two, all the toys firmed up in Sport Plus. The air springs now
have just one air chamber operating, reducing the air volume and so
stiffening the springing effect. If you can alter the spring rate you
can tailor your active damping changes much more accurately, and so it
proves as the Panamera takes on an entirely different character.
This one doesn't have active anti-roll but, now sitting 28mm lower on
its springs, it stays taut and level as our Porsche test driver flings
it through the bends as if it were a Cayman. This hefty car, the widest
(and lowest) of all comparable luxury saloons (hatchback and folding
rear seats notwithstanding), appears to defy all forces of inertia.
It's light of its type, at around 1700kg, yet it feels lighter. Many
outer panels, the front chassis rails, the front suspension towers and
the subframes are of aluminium, but the main structure is of various
strengths of steel. Magnesium castings form the front-panel frame and
the doors' window frames.
So the Panamera flicks into corners, understeer right off the dynamic
agenda, and slaloms left-right-left with barely a trace of wasted
motion. It's extraordinary.
But not as extraordinary as the Turbo. I'm in a back seat for this one,
enjoying surprising space and the clear view forward past the slender,
tapering backrests of the front seats (how refreshing that rear
passengers are allowed to see properly where they are going). It takes
maybe 10 yards to feel an altogether fiercer Panamera, one equally able
to waft but with ferocious and vocal acceleration when needed (0-62mph
in 4.2 seconds against the 4S's already-rapid 5.0).
It piles into Weissach's corners at mad speeds, even the adverse-camber
one which must have caused old 911s a lot of lift-off trouble, yet the
nose always finds grip while the tail simply hunkers down on the edge
of power oversteer, but never quite getting there (although it will
with all the systems off, the test driver assures me). The gearshifts
are definite but still smooth, the carbon-ceramic brakes tireless, the
ride still remarkable and uncannily flat with the active anti-roll
system. The PDK shifters in the steering wheel now slide fore-and-aft
instead of pivoting, by the way.
One other thing. All Panameras have a retractable rear spoiler which
rises to –3deg at 56mph and rises again to +10deg at 127mph. But the
Turbo's is something special: as well as rising, it splits into two and
widens. You wouldn't believe the cranks and levers and motors lurking
within the tailgate.
So that's the Panamera, and once again Porsche has taken an alien genre
of car and made it work as a Porsche should. On this first encounter
it's an extraordinary machine. Aston Martin's Rapide will have a tough
job to trump this.