Porsche Panamera (970)

The Porsche Panamera is a luxury four-door saloon. It is front-engined with rear-wheel drive, with four-wheel drive versions also available.

The Porsche Panamera production model was unveiled at the 13th Auto Shanghai International Automobile Show in Shanghai, China, on April 2009. In 2011, hybrid and diesel versions were launched. In April 2013, a facelift to the Panamera was announced, launching again at the Auto Shanghai show. A plug-in hybrid version, the Panamera S E-Hybrid, was released in the U.S. market in November 2013.

Engines are first assembled in Stuttgart, and the car's body is built and painted at the Volkswagen Group facility in Hannover. The final assembly of the vehicle takes place in Leipzig, Germany, alongside the Cayenne.

Production began in April 2009, one month after its debut in the Shanghai Motor Show in China.

Porsche has applied for patents on a four-door convertible version of the Panamera that keep the same general dimensions.

The new ZF seven-speed PDK dual clutch transmission is standard on the Panamera 4, 4S and Turbo models. With the addition of the optional sport chrono package, this provides faster acceleration times. In some markets a six-speed manual is available for rear-wheel drive petrol versions. The S Hybrid and Diesel models have an Aisin-supplied eight-speed automatic transmission called Tiptronic S.

The Panamera Diesel was launched in May 2011. The vehicle uses the same Audi 3.0L V6 engine used in the Cayenne Diesel, itself a tuned carryover of an existing engine. The Panamera's engine has a power output of 250 PS. The car is capable of accelerating from 0–100 km/h in 6.8 seconds and has a top speed of 242 km/h. It is also the most economical Porsche in the entire vehicle range, consuming just 6.3 liters per 100 kilometers.

Despite the differences in dimensions and design, a reviewer noted that the Panamera's driving dynamics were close to that of the 911, and it "seems to occupy the no-man's-land between really good sports sedans and proper sports cars", and so far the Panamera has won every comparison test against other four-door performance cars on the market such as the Maserati Quattroporte and Aston Martin Rapide. Function was also praised, with the 15.7 cubic feet hatchback trunk, and the four-corner adaptive air suspension that retained superior handling while also providing a comfortable ride for public roads. Edmunds stated that the Panamera was an innovative engineering feat that "makes a unique statement about the way that luxury transportation and serious high-performance potential can be mixed together in one car".

Unlike most of the V8-engined contemporaries, all models of the Panamera avoid the US Gas Guzzler Tax. The V6-powered Panamera was also praised, as its smaller engine still retained respectable acceleration, and as it had even better handling than its V8 siblings, due to the engine being lighter by 100 lb which gave the car better weight distribution.

However, CAR magazine of the U.K. described the S model as lacking sportiness, which they attributed to their test car's being "about as oriented to comfort as it’s possible to get" and called the Turbo model "a missed opportunity on behalf of Porsche" to be "the world’s first lightweight four seater" as the top model weighs as much as an Audi S8.

The 30 November 2008 edition of BBC's Top Gear featured a look at the Panamera in its news section, with the three presenters being very critical of the look. In the June 2009 edition, Richard Hammond and James May were seen driving the Panamera along the A30 in Devon, Great Britain They were racing against a letter sent via Royal Mail between the Isles of Scilly and the Orkney Islands. Jeremy Clarkson reviewed the Porsche Panamera for an article with The Times newspaper and was quite critical.

As of 2011, the largest national market was the United States with 6188 sold. Sales by cities: Los Angeles, New York, Hong Kong, Dubai, Tokyo, Munich, Moscow, Shanghai, Hamburg and Berlin. Sales internationally by model variant: Panamera 4S, Turbo, S and V6.

In 2012, U.S. sales of the Panamera totaled 7614 and Canadian sales of the Panamera totaled 422. 2012 seems to have been an exceptional year for German automakers. The Panamera was the automaker's second best-selling model in 2012, with 27331 units sold worldwide.

On the 20 April 2007, a spy video of the Porsche Panamera became available on the Internet.

In September 2008, Porsche released the first teaser image for the Panamera. In early October 2008, an undisguised Panamera was captured on film in Busan, South Korea.

On 28 November 2008, Porsche sent a mailer containing two photos of the Panamera which were labeled as "the first official images of the Porsche Panamera" with an invitation to have online access to via Porsche USA's website.

On 19 April 2009, Porsche finally unveiled the Porsche Panamera sedan to the public at the 2009 Shanghai Auto Show. One of the highlights of the Panamera's debut was fitting the car in the freight elevator of the Shanghai World Financial Center and sending it to the skyscraper's 94th floor.

An estate version concept of the Panamera was introduced at the 2012 Paris Motor Show called Sport Turismo. Powered by an advancement of Porsche's current hybrid system utilized in the Panamera S Hybrid, the Sport Turismo concept's new "e-Hybrid" system uses the 333-horsepower, supercharged 3.0-litre V6 and a 95-horsepower electric motor for 416 combined horses and a 30-kilometer electric range. As opposed to the current production system, this e-Hybrid setup prioritizes all-electric motivation unless the driver instructs the car otherwise. The Sport Turismo is technically a plug-in hybrid since the lithium-ion battery pack can be fully charged in as little as 2.5 hours when plugged into a wall outlet. Porsche declares that the combined powertrain is proficient for 0-62 mph acceleration in less than six seconds, and that the Sport Turismo can exceed 80 mph while running purely on electric power.

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