"Yesterday Porsche for the first time presented the interior concept of their forthcoming four door GT the Panamera. The long awaited challenge to the upper echelons of the saloon market is due to go on sale in the UK from 12 "
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 whether 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.
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Hold on: Am I right in saying there's no room in the family tree for the Cayenne? Funny that, eh?
Actually the Cayenne is in there! If you look at about 37 seconds, you can see one after the red 959 pulls away
I sense they've hit a nerve of the writer of this article, the fact remains though that the Panamera is one hell of an ugly car. Techincally brilliant sure, but ugly. No escaping that; and what's more 300 million people watch each episode of Topgear – only 1000 or so will ever read this.
Weather you like the appearance of the Panamera or not its an interesting,
differant,and well thought out advert.
got to be the best so far
No 944 in there either – the car that saved Porsche's ass in the late eighties and early nineties (and considerably better looking than the Panamera).
The reason I keep going back to this site is that there is a different perspective from the one you get from mainstream car mags or tv programmes and they dig up little stories that you just ill not find anywhere else.. I reckon Porsche 123 is right about the hack-on-hack professional jealousy, though. Top Gear is the most popular car media outlet on the planet – I watch it though i feel a bit of a mug sometimes for doing so. They know how to push buttons.
It's as classic as a VW Variant estate car, and that should be in its geneology somewhere too. Porsche are honest to God engineers, they are not design or styling geniusses and I don't know where that miconception has come from. Like the Cayenne it is a truly ugly brute with some 911 features grafted on. It has nothing to do with Form following Function. When so many car designers are striving to produce something that is modern and different, it is very tempting to panic and produce something ugly and say that it is groundbreaking. That is what they have done. Even the dynamics don't work so they are trying to sort it out electronically. If you want to see what they should have done look at Jaguar.