Porsche Panamera offers practicality while staying true to the brand

Recently unveiled, the third generation Porsche Panamera is looking better than ever, while still offering the more sensible buyer a fast moving, dynamic, full house GT meets saloon / sedan car type experience that differs from the luxury Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz offerings.

It is always going to be a love it or hate it kind of car. This sentiment comes mostly down to styling, which has always been the Achilles heel of the Porsche Panamera. The status quo remains largely unchanged with the most notable being differences being upfront with a new grille, new intakes and a smart-looking new LED Matrix headlight design.

The rear retains the that classy long LED taillight array as seen on other Porsche models, while the deployable boot spoiler also remains.

Stepping inside the all-new Panamera is where this large saloon starts to make more sense. The feeling of open space is prominent. The driver and passenger are comfortably accommodated and there is proper leg and headroom for two fully grown adults in the rear.

Digital nostalgia

Plus, the car offers a huge amount of boot space. It increases when folding the rear seats down for your golf clubs. Or whatever it is executives cart around on weekends.

Interior highlights include a new curved 12.6-inch digital instrument cluster and a 10.9-inch central infotainment screen. Plus the option of an entertainment screen on the passenger side of the dashboard.

ALSO READ: Porsche Panamera GTS and Turbo S E-Hybrid return with more go

Thankfully though, despite this digital step forward, all the media, aircon, and other functional controls, including wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, are easy to navigate and use. But the traditional key slot and gear lever is replaced by a start / stop button and the gear lever moved to between the cluster and the screen. At least you can change the digital instrument cluster to mimic the old school analogue cluster if you are feeling nostalgic.

It’s time to get into what the Porsche brand is all about, performance and agility. The Porsche Panamera 4 The Citizen Motoring sampled is powered by a 2.9-litre V6 twin-turbo pushing out a respectable 260kW of power and 500Nm of torque. But in typical Porsche fashion, this is enough to get this saloon to a better than claimed time of 4.53 seconds for the 0-100km/h sprint, and to 200km/h in under 20 seconds, with a time of 18.08 seconds, while on the way to a top speed of 270km/h.

The horses are thirsty

Maybe there is a small downside here and that is the fuel consumption in real world everyday driving sits closer to 14-litres per 100 km than it does the claimed 9.9-litres per 100 km. But I honestly don’t think that a person who is handing over nothing less than R2.344-million for a car like this is going to be keeping a note pad and Bic pen in the cubbyhole and writing down all the figures each time they fill up.

The all-new Porsche Panamera 4 is not a compact and lightweight car, but another little positive Porsche nuance is that despite the physical size of it, the adaptive air suspension and well weighted steering wheel do an exceptionally good job of hiding this fact.

For most owners, the agility on offer will be more than enough, and if not, then they can always put their name on the list for something with a GTS badge on it.

Porsche Panamera 4 test data