Porsche Panamera - Oh. Dat Ass.

Have you heard the big news? Porsche now builds a family car. Yeah, a family car that costs more than most family houses in the midwest. Actually, it's old news. Porsche has been building the "Panamera", named after a long defunct road race in Mexico, since 2010. And while they are pretty rare, you may not have every even seen one of these let alone heard of one, my wife has seen enough of them to have developed quite a fondness for them. So much so that every time she sees one she utters emphatically, "I want that!"  I found our subject car outside of the hotel we stayed in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida while on Christmas break. Trust me, the owner of this car was "slumming it" staying where we were staying. When your ride costs as much as a Panamera does I guess you have to try and save money somehow.

Apparently, there's something about this, in my opinion, homely as sin automobile that my wife finds compelling, appealing and alluring. In my eyes, it literally hurts both of my eyes and insults my senses in general too.

I'm not the only one who feels that way either. I wonder if it's there's such a mystique about Porshce that they could market a wet paper bag and people would buy it. However, with regards to matters of good taste, my wife is rarely wrong. So, when she sees something that appeals to her I pay attention. Particularly when it comes to automobiles not to mention $142,000 Porsches. By the way, I pronounce it, "Por-sha". My understanding is that the monosyllabic, "Porsh" is bourgeois. There's only one way to pronounce ugly.

Even if I remotely liked this car the Porsche traditionalist in me can't stomach the thought of a four door Porsche. Let alone see one in the flesh. To me, all Porsche's should be two passenger, two door roadsters with a rear mounted, air cooled flat six engine. Damn it. I don't have any issue with the old Porsche 928, incidentally, so...what kind of Porshce traditionalist am I? Englightened? Hardly, but I totally get why Porsche makes a sedan.

If Porsche stuck just to sports car they'd probably be long shuttered by now so the Panamera is plain and simple about survival. It was interesting, though, that they came out with an SUV, of all things, actually a couple of them, years before they came out with this thing. SUV's that redefined what an SUV can be by the way. Have you seen their Macan cross over? That's a cross over even I could get my arms around but I like it for what it is rather than the fact that it's a Porsche. The Porsche Panamera? No doubt there are many who would buy it because it's a Porshce but I wonder, my wife included, if they'd appreciate it as much if it were not a Porsche.

I want to like the Panamera and since it's such an outstanding performance machine I feel as though I should. It's just that there's so much not to like about the way it looks that I'd feel if I was lucky enough to have one I know I'd constantly be looking at the sexier flanks offered by Jaguar, Maserati, Aston Martin, BMW, Audi, Mercedes,  and say to my rich self, "what have I done"? 

Still, I like just about every individual design element of the Panamera. For instance, the gorgeous front end looks as though it was lifted from a 911. Fabulous. If you could have visualized what a Porsche four door would look like before actually seeing one, the front end at least, would look like this.

Oh, dat ass, though. I'm not really sure what to make of it although, (he says blushing), I really like it. Again, this is what the back end of a Porshce four door would look like in my mind's eye. Although this tail end is reminicent of the rear engined 911, the engine for the Panamera rests up front.

And what an engine that is too. On this car that's a twin turbocharged, 4.8 liter, water cooled Porsche V-8 making 520 horsepower and 516 pound feet of torque that can hurl this 4,400 pound monster to sixty in about 3 1/2 seconds. Top speed is an estimated 192 mph. Incredible.

The aesthetic issue I have with the Panamera is the disconnect fore and aft. This really odd roofline is there to give rear passengers and inordinate amount of head room relative to the over all size of the vehicle. Which, while large, had it had a more conventional roofline, rear passenger comfort would have been comprimised. Oh. Leave it to Porsche to have the gumption to do something from an engineering perspective first and foremost and put it out there to have people gobble it up. Not me, mind you, but my wife for one and a few very wealthy others think this thing is the balls very nice.

For the kind of money a Porsche Panamera costs, I'd have to be completely satisifed with every single aspect of it. Even for cars costing a third of what a Panamera costs it would have to be perfect. Regardless of what it can do on a race track. Oh. Dat Ass, though.