# 2010 Porsche Panamera (my review)



## Emission (Dec 19, 2001)

AggieKnight said:


> Mike - I love my job, but seriously....can I have yours?
> 
> ;-)
> 
> ...


Wanna swap? How much does yours pay? 

In all honesty, the M5 and Panamera are very different cars. You sit very upright in the M5, while the Panamera has gives you the feeling of being in a capsule... lower and sportier. They both handle well, and they are both fast. That said, I like them both for different reasons - it would be a tough decision.

- Mike


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## Dave 330i (Jan 4, 2002)

Dan always give his honest perspectives to glamorous automobiles in a funny way...

Porsche wraps a 4-door hulk in racy corset

The 2010 Panamera sedan is filled with luxury and speed. But compared with a 911, this thing handles like well-upholstered field artillery.
Dan Neil 
June 26, 2009 
The new Porsche Panamera is the best-handling big sedan in the world, which I grant is a little like being the smartest kid on the Arizona State football team or the most chaste governor of South Carolina. No matter how hard you try -- and Porsche's engineers have busted their adorable lederhosen here -- a 4,344-pound, 16.3-foot four-door cannot beguile physics like a sports car, and it certainly cannot be made to handle anything like a 911.

The Panamera thus presents Porsche with a problem of brand ontology: What is a Porsche? If you've spent much time in a Boxster, Cayman or 911 Carrera, new or old, you know the feeling of these cars: cold-rolled and heat-tempered, hard and light, nap of the Earth, edgy and reactive, ineffably masculine, a disposition that is to other sports cars what Dexedrine is to Geritol.

Photos: 2010 Porsche Panamera2010 Porsche Panamera Turbo with Sports Chrono package
The Panamera is none of that. Compared with a 911, this thing handles like well-upholstered field artillery.

There's nothing flickable or silver-heeled about the Panamera, and although its limits are truly spectacular -- the Turbo model with the Sport Chrono package can carrier-launch from zero to 60 mph in 4 seconds, generate 1 g of cornering force and brake to a stop from 188 mph in a tongue-unraveling 7 seconds -- the Panamera requires nothing so much as deliberation at the wheel. This is a big car (76 inches wide on a 115-inch wheelbase) with a mighty 4.8-liter V8 up front (400 horsepower, or 500 hp in turbo trim). There's no trailing-throttle oversteer bringing the tail around as there is in a rear-engine 911. No capering through the esses. Yes, you can make the Panamera do amazing things. Bring a whip and a chair.

Porsche's chieftains know they are trying to bridge a conceptual gulf here, so you'll notice the advertising harping on this notion of this gran turismo being a "true" Porsche, to the point of protesting too much. I take a different view. It's a car made by Porsche, with breathtaking engineering that is routine for Weissach. The materials are exquisite, the seats are fantastic, the four-seat interior design is the best on the market and the whole thing is so summarily pleasurable it makes me want to empty out the nearest FDIC-insured facility with a tommy gun, a la John Dillinger.

To nail the throttle, and bring all 567 pound-feet of torque online (in Sport Plus mode), is to know the giddy excitement of falling into a black hole. That 1,000-piece horn section that must have played unceasingly in Richard Wagner's balmy head? It's in the exhaust.

I love the big, through-cabin console with its switches arrayed like the stripes on a sergeant's sleeve. Among the hundredweight of amenities are things such as a second navigation display embedded in the instrument panel and an optional Burmester audiophile sound system, a 1,000-watt, 16-channel/speaker unit that is the best road-going audio I've ever heard.

The damned car is magnificent. But it is not made of the same charmed isotopes as the 911, and therefore not a Porsche. Sorry.

Ironically, the company's determination to have the Panamera received as true Porsche has led to the car's greatest downfall: its exterior styling. Or is that a pratfall? If you look closely, you'll see that styling chief Michael Mauer has essentially taken the front and rear of a 911 and rudely grafted in between two sets of sedan doors. I understand this was done in the name of brand continuity, to retain the styling vocabulary of Porsche, in which there is real equity. But, jeez, this isn't styling -- this is some kind of weird enlargement surgery you go to South America for.

We've been here before. When Porsche introduced the Cayenne sport utility vehicle seven years ago, the company turned itself inside out explaining how a 5,600-pound SUV with a two-speed transfer case was spiritual heir to a 917 Long Tail. But it turned out it really didn't matter. The Porsche SUV turned out to be the heresy that everyone was looking for, and the Cayenne became Porsche's bestselling model. Like the Cayenne, the Panamera is vital to Porsche's long-term profitability and plans for expansion -- and, one assumes, the ultimate goal of taking over VW, the minnow swallowing the whale.

The company expects to build 20,000 Panameras a year at its Leipzig, Germany, assembly hall. The base model is the rear-drive Panamera S ($89,900); then there's the all-wheel-drive 4S ($93,000) and the Turbo ($132,600). All U.S.-spec cars will be equipped with the exquisite seven-speed, double-clutch PDK gearbox. Within a year Porsche will offer a V6 base model and -- brace yourself, Sunshine -- a hybrid version.

Also like the Cayenne, the Panamera is laced into a sports car corset with an astonishing ligature of adaptive damping, optional air suspension, active aerodynamics, active anti-roll bars and all manner of traction and stability assists, as well as anti-lock and anti-fade braking technologies. This thing runs on silicon as much as petroleum. The adaptive air suspension, for instance, enables drivers to raise the car an inch to get in and out of driveways; it also enables the car to squat down an inch in Sport Plus mode, for better cornering stability and lower aero-drag.

On the Turbo, the four-piece rear wing deploys in stages until, at 127 mph, it attains a 10-degree attack angle for max down force until the car reaches its top speed of 188 mph. I hit 180 mph, and the car couldn't have been more civilized and nailed down. What kind of sick mind makes a car cabin quiet at those speeds?

Yes, the Bentley Flying Spur is faster, with a 202-mph top speed, but the Panamera Turbo would obliterate the Bentley on a road course.

Obviously, there's a lot of technology on this car, and one enormous fig leaf of environmental respectability. The Panamera comes with a stop-start feature that will, under the right circumstances, kill the engine at a stoplight to improve fuel economy.

Yes, but for the lake of fire under the hood, that's very efficient.

[email protected]


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## Emission (Dec 19, 2001)

I had drinks with Dan in the bar in Germany, and then sat across from him at dinner. Really nice guy - I can't say enough good things about him. :thumbup:

- Mike

(I should add, he really liked the Panamera too.)


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## Dave 330i (Jan 4, 2002)

Emission said:


> I had drinks with Dan in the bar in Germany, and then sat across from him at dinner. Really nice guy - I can't say enough good things about him. :thumbup:
> 
> - Mike
> 
> (I should add, he really liked the Panamera too.)


A real smart guy. Had a few email exchanges with him before.


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## Emission (Dec 19, 2001)

Dave 330i said:


> A real smart guy. Had a few email exchanges with him before.


As you probably know, he's the only automotive journalist to ever with a Pulitzer Prize! Brilliant guy, and it is obvious immediately during the conversation.

- Mike


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## PBC///2.7 (Aug 14, 2008)

well, I don't like it too much as it is not a ture P-car to me,why?? They are following the wroug way of what is a ture Porsche should be. That is just me on this one and I am not a big fan of their SUV as well....cheers..


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## Bcube (Apr 12, 2007)

This might be an interesting comparison test:

Panamera
M5
AMG CLS63
Quattroporte Sport GT S
Maybe throw the high end Audi in the mix.


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## Kandiru (May 3, 2007)

No 3 pedals on the floor, not my cuppa tea. Another geriatric or workaholic monomaniac commuter.

911 Carrera 4S for the real drivers, and for the ones with lil uns like me, a 535xi or Audi RS4 after i finish SAAB Turbo X lease.

Now 2010 Acura TL SH-AWD with 6 speed MT, that is guts, and showing that they are willing to break away and experiment at the
expense of the comfort-eater sports spectator bunch 

OMG, where are the real drivers cars? Friend of mine got a brand new Corvette, i was so eager to drive and drive, one look through
the window and i said no thanks, no 3rd pedal, no car, unless you force me into the minivan. Look at the new SHO, no manual either?


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## eazy (Aug 20, 2002)

The Porsche Panemera Turbo Beats CTS-V's Ring Time by about 3 seconds


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## jim (Jan 3, 2003)

Emission said:


> I thought you guys would like this:
> 
> (My review of the Porsche Panamera.)
> 
> ...


Great article and pics. Thanks for posting!


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## Emission (Dec 19, 2001)

eazy said:


> The Porsche Panemera Turbo Beats CTS-V's Ring Time by about 3 seconds


I wouldn't have expected that. The CTS-V beat the M5, right? Do you have numbers?



jim said:


> Great article and pics. Thanks for posting!


Thanks!

- Mike


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## Rich_Jenkins (Jul 12, 2003)

Emission said:


> They are better in the flesh.


I hope so. Not that there's any danger of me buying one, but it looks like a hideously inflated 911 that someone stuck a second pair of doors inside of. Ewww.

Still, I'm sure it was fun to do the review.


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## swajames (Jan 16, 2005)

Emission said:


> I wouldn't have expected that. The CTS-V beat the M5, right? Do you have numbers?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> - Mike


Here's one link - http://www.motorauthority.com/repor...o-lays-claim-to-756-nurburgring-lap-time.html

There are a fair few others out there this morning, all seem to be basing the claim on a report from Sport Auto which is here:

http://www.sportauto-online.de/fahr...lter-roehrl-auf-der-nordschleife-1344872.html

If this is right, that's very impressive - the Panamera Turbo will hold the record for a sedan, beating the CTS-V and M5 as you say.


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## Emission (Dec 19, 2001)

swajames said:


> Here's one link - http://www.motorauthority.com/repor...o-lays-claim-to-756-nurburgring-lap-time.html
> 
> There are a fair few others out there this morning, all seem to be basing the claim on a report from Sport Auto which is here:
> 
> ...


Well, the Panamera Turbo was pretty bloody fast... and it has a low center of gravity and AWD. That will help it put the power down (CTS-V will struggle keeping those tires from slipping). I can't wait to see some real-world 0-60 and 0-100 numbers.

- Mike


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## eazy (Aug 20, 2002)

Emission said:


> I wouldn't have expected that. The CTS-V beat the M5, right? Do you have numbers?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> - Mike


yup CTS-v beat the M5 at the ring since it was the first sedan to break the 8 minutes mark and it was the automatic version. I do not know if they tested the CTS-v with the manual at the track


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## TeamM3 (Dec 24, 2002)

eazy said:


> yup CTS-v beat the M5 at the ring since it was the first sedan to break the 8 minutes mark and it was the automatic version. I do not know if they tested the CTS-v with the manual at the track


yes, it was the 6 speed manual as reported by many sources, here is the in/on car vid of the run






local guy got POd because the Chevy dealership refused to let him drive the Z06 before making a purchase so he drove and bought a Nissan GT-R instead, took it to Reno-Fernley track several weekends ago and proceeded to outlap the fastest modified race tire cars (C5 & C6 Corvettes) by over 2 seconds/lap with his bone-stock GTR, OE street tires and all ....


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## eazy (Aug 20, 2002)

TeamM3 said:


> yes, it was the 6 speed manual as reported by many sources, here is the in/on car vid of the run
> 
> 
> 
> ...


In the video it is actally the automatic version because the automatic version has a all black gear knob while the manual has a metallic top on its gear knob.

Also below is a video from cadillac test driver John Heinricy explaining his run in Nurburgring where he mentions the car he used was an automatic


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## TeamM3 (Dec 24, 2002)

a number of sources reported it as a 6 speed :dunno:


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## TeamM3 (Dec 24, 2002)

wow, the Panamera has a 4850lb trailer with brakes limit, might be kind of nice to tow the race car in with one ... :eeps:


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## Emission (Dec 19, 2001)

TeamM3 said:


> a number of sources reported it as a 6 speed :dunno:


I know you are talking about the CTS-V, but Porsche brought one 6-speed manual (Panamera S) to the launch in Germany. Since it was a Euro-only car, I never had a chance to drive it. They don't offer the Turbo model with a manual transmission.



TeamM3 said:


> wow, the Panamera has a 4850lb trailer with brakes limit, might be kind of nice to tow the race car in with one ... :eeps:


Yeah, but that is at the limit for my race car/trailer combo. My car is 2700 lbs, the trailer is 2200 lbs. 

- Mike


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