Porsche Enthusiasts Club Forum

Following on from the launch of the Panamera at Silverstone OPC, I had the pleaseure of borrowing a Turbo Panamera for a couple of hours yesterday.

My intital thoughts from the launch were it's a BIG car, didn't like the interior much, or the in-coherent rear end.

After the drive ?
well it's fast........VERY !
it's also very, very quiet at high speed;
and extremely stable;
All controls are pretty intuitive really - despite it appearing to have more buttons than the space shuttle.
Where it really shocked me was it's handling capabilites, and the ability to cover ground fast over Soth Northants worst roads !
It really does take some realising that there is a large car behind you when you are at the wheel.
The PCCB brakes were faultless, especially from high speed - and no dust !

The car now makes more sense to me, and I could live with the questionable rear end looks. The interior has grown on me - it also feels exceptionally well screwed together.
Rear boot space is adequate - though the dog may think otherwise
Oh, got to mention launch control - hilarious !
0-60 in under 4 secs - all with no drama

Also, with sport plus turned on, you really can get the back end out quite easily

Would I buy one ?
not new, definitely not.
in 3-4 years time....watch this space....

David

Nice one David, I would probably share the same conclusion as you.

Not had pleasure of drive but sat in one yesterday at local OPC.

Was surprised and appalled at the cheap and flimsy action of column stalks. The material used was also cheapo stuff. Other switchgear (like paddles for PDK) felt similarly nasty. The interior used a lot of hard plastics where a rubberized material would feel better to the touch.

I'm not in position to buy one, but if I was this would frankly be enough to put me off. There's a lot of ownership pleasure in quality feeling switchgear. BMW, Audi and understand this and implement it on far cheaper cars. Porsche used to understand it on earlier cars.

Lovely to look at but....sadly Porsche seem to have lost the plot in some respects.

Stephen

you say lost the plot - why ?

Also surprised at the comments on the switchgear - esp the paddles - I thought they were fine !

Hmm Car Magazine says Piech wants to ditch Panamera and Cayenne at end of their current model cycle (that would be 7 years time for Panamera).

Does that mean the next gen Cayenne will be the Audi off roader and the next gen panamera a smaller bentley?

It would make sense, although the Cayenne is already available within the VW group as the much nicer looking better buy Volkswagen Touareg. Porsche should stick to sports cars, I can never understand why every manufacturer feels the need to have a model in every class / at every level - I have read that even BMW's 5 series is now going to be a hatchback.

If they're going to do anything why don't they do something really useful like pick-up trucks - like the old Ford P100? I'd have one... I'd have a Ford one if there were any around in good nick.

Anyway, only my opinion and each to his own

I'll wait for the 2 door 928 successor to come based on the Panamera's floorpan. I'll probably be able to afford one by then at about the same time as I can fly to the Mars on a return ticket