Newsflash: the Panamera looks good. Or rather, the Panamera rendering that Top Gear magazine commissioned for its Bulgarian edition looks good. Which really has no bearing on whether the actual Panamera will look good. Which is a shame.
If you compare the rendering to the spy shots, you see it rescues the Panamera's sides from the tube-of-soap styling that the mules have thus far displayed. The flared wheel arches, especially at the rear, and the harder angles on the flanks give the car the kind of elegant aggression a Porsche demands. The scalloped sides, which we think are attractive but a bit gimmicky, do emphasize the growth of the car toward the rear, which is also a benefit. And the wheels: yes.
But on the subject of the rendering's posterior, which looks like a truncated Cayman... The only thing we can say is that making 3 out of 4 sides look better isn't bad. Top Gear thinks its rendering is "the best idea yet" of what the Panamera will look like. We'll all find out at the Geneva Motor Show in 2009.
Thanks for the tip, Mike!
[Source: Top Gear]
New KITT Attack Mode revealed at Comic Con
London 2008: Honda OSM concept roadster says, "Cheerio!"
London 2008: Lotus unveils the Evora
2010 Chevy Camaro - Official Details and Images
2010 Chevy Camaro - LIVE from the reveal
In the Autoblog Garage: Aprilia RSV 1000 R
First Drive: Maserati Quattroporte S in Europe
First Drive: 2008 MINI Cooper S JCW
In the Autoblog Garage:2009 Nissan GT-R
North American Exclusive First Drive: Alfa MiTo
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
2004m3driver @ Oct 24th 2007 4:09PM
Goddamn that looks weird. Just like the Cayenne. This solidifies it for me, badge whores play a major role in the market.
Ah I am just being over dramatic, I am pretty sure it will give all those other saloons a run for its money. Just looks very weird.
Neil @ Oct 24th 2007 4:11PM
Looks more or less just like the spy shots, which is to say very odd and not overly attractive.
Yaroukh @ Oct 24th 2007 4:17PM
Looks good? I strongly disagree.
No match for Rapide even if they were on the same "image-level".
Greg @ Oct 24th 2007 4:22PM
I think the entire concept of the Panamera is ridiculous, and every rendition has looked just awful. But I will agree, this is the best one yet. Except for the Corvette-looking bump in the hood.
mk @ Oct 24th 2007 4:25PM
Porsche should be able to do better than this with a sedan, without trying to make everything look like a variant of the 911.
The 911 looks fantastic, but smushing it down for the cayman, and stretching it out for the Cayenne, and now this, just doesn't work so well.
Give the thing a real roofline, and maybe. It just looks like it isn't living in it's own skin, so to speak.
I guess it will be interesting to see if the rumored front-engined coupe will be a hit or miss.
Rapide blows this thing away, style-wise.
asifgrkhan @ Oct 25th 2007 6:43AM
do you see the reasoning disconnect in your argument. porsche could drive a cayenne through it.
first complaining that porsche makes all its cars look like a 911 - either truncated in case of cayman or stretched in case of panamera.
and then raving about the rapide. as if the astons produced in the past 10 years have looked totally different from each other.
that said, there is no comparison between a rapide and any other 4 seater in the world.
mk @ Oct 25th 2007 1:30PM
I didn't mean that they should depart from their design language.
Porsche has a look, and they should stick to it. But this car looks like they stuffed 2-tons of sedan into a 1-ton coupe bag, and it is stretching to the breaking point.
I love porsche's curves and shapes. But the Panamera, along with needing a new name, needs it's own design within that language.
The aston Rapide is derived from the DB9, and it makes no bones about it. Everything forward of the A-pillar is the same. It is the same chassis, engine, and layout. It is much more closely related to the DB9 and AM's VH architecture, and thus can pull it off. it is merely a stretched DB9 with additional doors, and lift-back. And it flows nicely, and looks completely integrated.
The Panamera is a different chassis and layout than the 911, and the Boxster/Cayman, it also isn't an SUV like the Cayenne, yet they still try to wrap it in parts of the same skin as all three, and it it doesn't quite work the same way. I think there should be a way for this car to say "Porsche" all over it, without trying to be a distorted carbon copy of other porsche cars.
The roofline and the front end are the biggest places that need work, if this rendering is anywhere close. This thing looks like a hunchback with big nose.
And I think Porsche is skilled enough not to need the C-shape in the door, either. It looks like an outgoing hyundai, and Porsche is better at original design than that.
dude @ Oct 24th 2007 4:30PM
Porsche is a money hungry company that will do anything imaginable and unimaginable to earn more cash. Selling out and prostituting its heritage is not an option any longer since they did it years ago by introducing the Cayenne.
Maybe if they bough vw/audi they could then re-focus Porsche on actual sports cars again. I would hate to see vw and audi under complete porsche control but this is whole other issue.
regardless, panamera is lame... a huge compromise with plenty of cost cutting. bmw's CS will be a better car, you can bet.
Richard @ Oct 24th 2007 5:49PM
God Bless capitalistic, money-hungry people and corporations!
So long as they abide by the laws the innovation they create moves us all forward...if not (as in this idiom) in the prettiest fashion.
Nellydesign @ Oct 25th 2007 9:20AM
It's those "money hungry" decisions that ensure you'll have plenty of Carreras and GT2's to drool over for years to come. Don't knock em. The Cayenne made Porsche a RIDICULOUS amount of money. That being said I wish this looked better:(
dude @ Oct 25th 2007 11:13AM
who said i was drooling over the carrera GT?
anyway, there are plenty of brands (ferrari, lambo, bentley, rolls etc) who simply focus on what they are good at and make money with it.
please do not start with the´capitalims = progress´ bs cause this is absolutely not the case, and autoblog is hardly the right place to hold such a debate.
selling out is selling out. porsche gets no respect for this.
also, cayenne is a vw by all means, not a porsche. The next one is also very lame. trust me.
XJ X-traordinaire @ Oct 24th 2007 4:39PM
I agree, and I don't understand why. I just don't see anyone outside Los Angeles buying this car, and even those in LA might be weirded out. Its not practical as a large sedan because it has no trunk, even the Mercedes CLS which is kind of a 4 door coupe has a trunk. I'll take my 911 with two doors, thanks.
Slag @ Oct 24th 2007 6:20PM
Whaddaya mean, no trunk? It's got a hatch, that's better than a trunk in a lot of ways!
As for the styling, it's OK.
On an only-slightly-related note, why was the Cayenne styling so universally panned, when the original BMW X5 styling was almost universally loved? The X5 is hideous, not to mention looking like a scaled-up 1990s GM Astra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Opel_Astra_1997.jpg)!
FLR @ Oct 24th 2007 4:40PM
I thought Porche couldn't build anything uglier or as uninspired as the Cayenne. I guess I was wrong.
This thing is just awkward from every angle. I suppose if you have enough money to buy this you don't care how it looks, because hey, you're still rich. However, this thing is ugly no matter which angle you look at it. The 911 nose doesn't exactly set my heart aflutter as it is. Sticking it on an SUV or sedan doesn't make things better.
Sigh.........
RG @ Oct 24th 2007 4:43PM
Hmm, the front is improving. Anything after the B pillar, other than the wheels and exhaust, is a complete disaster.
Turan Ahmed @ Oct 24th 2007 4:53PM
Although Ferdinand Piech's attentions have been on bigger issues (ie Porsche-VW consolidation), he knows that the 'Pan-Am' car will be a major volume and revenue earner for the Stuttgart company, assisting it's already industry leading profitability - to be assisted again via VW parts and back-office sharing. Yes the 4 door has been muted and dropped in the past, so the very fact that Cayenne lends its platform makes the business case more than viable, infact very appealing. As for the car itself, since the CLS, coupe-like 4-door GTs have become the must have - who needs a 7 series (note BMWs similar efforts) or an XJ when such sublime cars are available. Just a shame that the Pan-Am couldn't have incorporated a clap-hand door system like the RX-8 to assist shutline proportions and the glasshouse and be more Porsche-like. But ultimately a car that the many (loyal & new)buyers and Porsche will be clamouring to bring to market. Purists can debate the ethics of 'Pan-Am', but remember that a car company is both car-producer and profit-seeking company - the magic is in balancing the 2 often opposed ideologies.
Turan Ahmed - 'investment-auto-motives.com'
London, England
Lucas @ Oct 24th 2007 4:48PM
kinda cool. We need uniqueness in auo design, these days...
..and not the kind we get from you, Citroen!
dave @ Oct 24th 2007 7:17PM
I'd much rather have Citroën's brand of unique design than this. Looks good? In what sense? I can't see any way of looking at it that is pleasant. It looks to me like a squished Cayenne more than anything.
Randy Lioz @ Oct 24th 2007 4:50PM
What the hell is a tube of soap?
Gary @ Oct 24th 2007 5:03PM
If it weren't for the CLS, Quattroporte, and BMW CS concept, this would be the best-looking four-door coupe in the world.