Porsche: Stuttgart vs Shepherds Bush

There’s something ridiculous about a scenario when journos gather round like piranhas waiting to strip the meat off a car that, for whatever reason, has been found to the distaste of the head Piranha of the pack (otherwise known as Jeremy Clarkson).

Yep, you know that Jezza holds the rank and file of motoring opinion in the palm of his voluminous, slightly sweaty, palm.

But wether or not you take the TG team’s doubt­lessly machiavellian ‘opinions’ as gospel or not, we reckon Ferdinand Porsche’s company of dedicated design engineers have a better chance of getting things right than a handful of badly dressed TV hacks.

Of course, the comments made by the Anointed One on the Panamera might reflect to an extent what is obvious. The Panamera could well be scene as a desperate fusion of über successful styling elements in a landgrab for new markets in a time of industry trouble.

But can form as function ever really produce something as ugly as ‘an inside-​​out monkey?’

Anyway, as demon­strated by Stuttgart’s determ­in­ation to highlight the Panamera’s geneology, the fact that the Panamera takes so many strands of Porsche genius and fuses them in a design that isn’t compromised by popular opinion should make potential buyers feel cossetted by history.

Porsche are certainly spending a lot of money to place the Panamera firmly in the mainstream of Porsche evolution. In North America at least, the campaign to brand the Panamera is being supported by some of the most sophist­icated marketing we’ve ever seen.

We actually love the way the Panamera looks. In an age of conver­gence of all things aesthetic, it retains a unique presence – and that sort of uniqueness usually denotes a classic.