A new beginning: An exclusive sneak peek at the Porsche Panamera

MANILA, Philippines - It was 3AM. I was fresh from a 16-hour flight that took me from Manila to Amsterdam to Stuttgart. To say that I was extremely groggy would be the understatement of the year. I was in Stuttgart for the exclusive sneak peek at the Porsche Panamera, the model that brings with it the promise of a shift in perspective for the renowned German sports car maker. The car wouldn’t make its public debut for another month – at the Shanghai International Auto Show. For all intents and purposes I ought to have been excited. But, in truth, I was quite disoriented. I was up ridiculously early because of some particularly sad news. A text message and a subsequent YM conversation with STAR columnist Manny de los Reyes confirmed the fact that the Legend of Philippine Motorsports, Pocholo Ramirez, had indeed finished the great race of life. I was moved with emotion.

I had, late last December, spearheaded a fund raising effort to help the Ramirez family defray the mounting costs of their patriarch’s battle with cancer. With his eldest son Kookie fighting a similar battle with him, Tito Poch (as we fondly refer to him) gave it one last huge push. Alas, the chequered flag for Tito Poch was closer than we had all hoped.

I sat alone in my hotel room, dumbfounded, distraught and at a loss for words. The Philippine motoring community, in fact the entire country, had lost a great man. A patriot who had proudly carried and successfully raised the flag for country in many an international sporting competition had passed away. I was deeply and profoundly saddened. And then it hit me. Ironically, I was in Germany, all alone with an exclusive story to tell STAR readers, exactly because Pocholo Ramirez paved the way for an entire industry to thrive. We were – are – a respected, well-informed and significant automotive market because Pocholo Ramirez paved the way for recognition on so many levels. Apart from representing the Filipino motoring and racing enthusiast, he also started – along with STAR columnist Ray Butch Gamboa – the longest running motoring show on Philippine television, Motoring Today. The legacy he left behind included an entire community of motoring journalists aspiring for perfection. In other words, from out of nowhere it struck me that Tito Poch would have wanted me to be the consummate professional that he was. He would have wanted me to write a well-researched and well-written account of the job I was sent to Germany to do. And so I buckled down to work.

First things first, though. What exactly is the Porsche Panamera? To answer that question, we sat with Porsche AG Executive Vice President for Research & Development Wolfgang Durheimer and asked him up front. “The Porsche Panamera is an alternative concept car for the premium customer, a sporting, dynamic, but nevertheless elegant four-seater Gran Turismo,” he said. “We realized years ago that one day we would reach the limits of growth with our existing model range. And indeed, this limit is by no means a bad thing, since the exclusivity of our cars remains an essential factor crucial to Porsche’s success in the market. But in order to continue our policy of ongoing growth, we decided to build a new model series rounding off our existing portfolio range in an ideal manner.” In other words, it’s a car meant to hit the solar plexus of the most discerning amongst the discerning. From the get-go, Porsche had made it clear. This is a car not meant for general consumption.

But who does it intend to attract... emotionally, on a performance level and from a practical perspective? To answer that question, we had to go through a crash course – a day-long workshop that presented all fronts of the Porsche Panamera, straight from the engineers who spearheaded the entire project. Which is exactly what I was in Germany to do.

Apparently, the Porsche Panamera is a unique animal. It intends to marry the needs and desires of a very distinct set of car enthusiasts. The car was meant to: a) have the silhouette of a coupe, while offering four full-sized seats, a generous and variable interior and lots of space for luggage, b) set the standard in its segment in terms of performance while offering the best fuel economy of all competitors in its market, c) offer driving dynamics and performance typical of Porsche, as well as the comfort of a luxury sedan, and d) feature a driver’s cockpit typical of a sports car while boasting a luxurious interior in premium quality with all the equipment characteristic of its segment.

Does it succeed in achieving all of its lofty goals? In a word: yes.

Let’s tackle each goal briefly, shall we? While the car’s exterior design admittedly takes some getting used to, it does have this tendency to grow on you. The fact that it is almost five meters long helps in achieving this goal, no doubt. Apart from the Cayenne, we aren’t really used to seeing four doors on a car with a Porsche badge, for example. But the car’s sleek, taut lines tend to, well, grow on you. And once you do take a seat inside the vehicle (we sat in both the front and rear seats as we did several rounds on the test track) you can’t help but admit that spaciousness and versatility won’t be much of an issue.

A couple of workshops on the car’s suspension features, body/weight construction and fuel efficiency technology innovations attested to the amount of work that the German car maker painstakingly put into the development of the Panamera. Several levels of varying kinds of sheetmetal, for example, were applied – if only to achieve that perfect sense of balance. A whole gamut of exclusive technological advancements, meanwhile, come standard in the vehicle – with the sole purpose of maximizing and marrying both its performance parameters and fuel efficiency numbers. PDK (Porsche’s patented double clutch system), reduced driving resistance numbers due to aerodynamic research, reduced frictional and hydraulic losses and several other unique features combine to reduce fuel consumption to up to 23 percent compared to its competitors.

Three distinct variants, on the other hand, present several levels of driving refinement to address varying driving dynamics requirements. (These are the 2WD Panamera S, the 4WD Panamera 4S – both of which throw in 400bhp, and the Panamera Turbo – which throws in a whopping 500bhp into the picture). With the mere flick of a switch, the Porsche Panamera – in all three of its guises – can be comfortable, sporty or downright performance-oriented. Several turns on board each variant in the test track located at the Porsche Research & Development center in Weissach all but affirmed this. In truth, despite all my years in motoring, I had never experienced such diverse schizophrenic tendencies in a single vehicle.

Finally, the Panamera’s interior ergonomics serve as living proof that given the proper motivation, nothing is impossible. Contrasting characteristics that define sports and luxury cars find common ground inside a Panamera. The snug cockpit, for example, is reminiscent of an aircraft’s own – yet it’s still intuitive in every manner. Take a seat in the rear, however, and the leg and headroom are nothing if not sensational. A ridiculously mind-baffling four-zone climate system rounds out the entire luxury experience. Personally, I have never seen anything like the Panamera where contrasting concepts – and their subsequent marriage – are concerned.

At the end of the day, I actually felt that I had witnessed a new beginning in the way cars can be conceived, built and presented. Funny that the experience came at a time when I felt that an era had ended. With the passing of an industry stalwart came the arrival of an entirely new concept. Imagine that. Could the arrival of the Porsche Panamera usher in a new age in car design and conceptualization? Only time will tell. This much I know, though. The past leads to the present. And the present leads to a future that we can all only hope will bring better things to come. And at present, we stand on the shoulders of giants. It is incumbent upon us, then, to better ourselves continuously – even if it means looking past tradition and thinking differently. We will miss our hero Pocholo Ramirez, but we will always embrace his passion for perfection – and if thinking out of the box and coming up with novel concepts like the new Porsche Panamera is that future, then so be it. Personally, I think looking past convention and welcoming change – especially for such a staunch traditional company like Porsche – is a huge step forward. I’m more than willing to take it. Yes, I think Pocholo Ramirez would’ve too...