Awesome foursome

MANILA, Philippines - Ten years ago, you could be sure that the best golfer in the world would be white, the best pound for pound boxer would be black, Jaguars would be British, Hummers American, and the most anticipated model from Porsche would be a 911. Things made sense that way. Fast forward a decade and I’m sitting on board an Emirates flight to Munich that offers me an internet connection and global roaming on my cellphone, but I’m more stunned by the fact that I’m getting cold sweats about driving a four door sedan from Porsche. Oh how times have changed.

What’s next? A minivan? But if the truth be known, this is not exactly the company’s first swipe at it; Dr. Ferry Porsche had always dreamed of a four door GT saloon and Porsche engineers got pretty darn close to realizing it twenty years ago when they developed the radical 989. But it just wasn’t to be. Call it fate, but just like Barrack Obama wouldn’t have won ten years ago, it’s all about the timing; and now, sixty one years later, on what would have been Dr. Ferry Porsche’s 100th birthday, the Panamera is finally born.

I’ll spare you from all the ugly jokes that are floating around out there because:

A) Styling is subjective (plus you can be sure the nastiness is largely coming from those who have never seen the car up close, much less driven it.)

B) This is a normal reaction because people generally fear change; I’m sure Paula Abdul would get the same reception the first time she turns up to American Idol sober. It’s all about what you’re used to. Besides, the Cayenne got more flak when it was launched and now it’s paying all the bills so that Porsche can continue building your beloved 911s.

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s take a closer look at the Panamera, as described to me by its proud parents on its graduation night after several bottles of red and some fine cognac. Let’s skip the names and titles to protect the intoxicated, but suffice to say that after all was revealed and we bid farewell, I was shaking the same hands that built the car I drove that day.

Initially, Porsche targeted the Mercedes CLS55 and the Quattroporte, but it wasn’t until they found some nifty solutions to the seating, like positioning them almost as low as a 911, did they realize that they had created enough leg and headroom to compete with the 7 Series and S Class as well. Although it probably wasn’t until they broke the Nurburgring “four door” lap record, a staggering 17 seconds quicker than the E60 M5 and equaling the times of the Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradale and their very own 911 Turbo did they decide, bugger the lot of you, we’re creating a whole new class: the Panamera class.

But modesty aside, it’s still a pretty cut throat segment, with plenty of fabulous vehicles vying for your $200,000, so Porsche bought a total of 11 of their competitors’ cars and rotated them among their engineers during the development of the Panamera just to be able to benchmark it. These included the Maserati Quattroporte, the BMW M5, the Audi A8, the CLS55 AMG, just to rattle off a few. While I have the deepest respect for them all, having driven each one to extremes, nothing on earth drives quite like the Panamera. It really is in a class of its own. Corners can’t be tight enough, straights are never too long and journeys are always far too short.

It dismisses the launch to 100 kilometers faster than you just read this line, and rifles through each gear so blisteringly quick that it feels more like firing a weapon than swapping a cog. Porsche was one of the last ones to jump on board the double clutch wagon, but they’ve used that time to create the most perfect example out there. Yes, even better than the mind-blowing Ferrari California. Which leads me to perhaps my only complaint.

Porsche will argue in three different languages that the current steering wheel (Tiptronic-style) push button set up is the most efficient way to change gears, but it is really far more natural to downshift with a left paddle and upshift with the right. They assure me that Porsche owners prefer it that way, and that they want to remain consistent, but the mere fact that Porsche is one of the only serious sports car manufacturers that uses this type of system just reinforces my point. And while we’re on it, heritage aside, a Start/Stop button would also be a really nice touch. But we’re nitpicking now.

Inside, you get supremely supportive seats that are almost infinitely adjustable and perhaps the largest transmission console next to the original Hummer, albeit a LOT more elegant. There’s no complicated i-drive set up, instead, buttons are lined up carefully with various controls for everything from the air suspension to the sensational Burmester audio system, and Porsche now include an interactive dial next to the Tachometer that displays the navigation.

Fitted with Porsche’s Sports Plus mode, the Panamera is capable of taking on a completely new persona at the push of a button. Acceleration is crisper, suspension firmer and gear changes even more devastating. It also adjusts the valves to give the big V8 a throatier, angrier exhaust note, while the air suspension compensates for every driving condition.

The conversation reaches fever pitch in the piano bar of our hotel. Everyone has a story to tell. There are four different conversations happening simultaneously, and they’re all aimed at me. The engineers speak randomly and over one another. Collectively, they sound like an engine on the redline. I’m actually wishing they could have developed stability control for speech. But there’s so much passion behind every fold of aluminum, every gear cog and every drop of horsepower milked out of that 4.8 liter V8 engine, that you hear it traced through each spoken word and you realize that the pride in their new product is almost disturbing, but rightfully so.

Once they were clear about what exactly they wanted to be, it became more about overcoming compromises than simply raiding the parts bin. The gearbox, for example, needed to be as smooth as single malt whiskey in the urban cycle but have the devastating kick of home made tequila as soon as you feel like partying. They were able to solve this with a heavily revised PDK system that kept the ratios quite short and modifying the software to start in first but shift to second almost instantly.

The embers of the internal battles that went on during development still glow red occasionally, with the engineers taking playful stabs at one another, “But it was always in pursuit of a common goal” they assure me. Take the engine, for example; as similar as it may seem to the Cayennes‘ to the average punter, we’re talking about as much as 40% modification to make the transplant successful. For starters, the engine needed to be mounted much lower in the Panamera, leaving little space for the front axle. Porsche eventually had to make some significant tweaks below the crankshaft centerline and position the front, open differential on the passenger side of the aluminum oil pan and route the left-side driveshaft through the pan itself.

But the challenges were not only in engineering. Launching their flagship model at the apex of the worst financial crisis in modern history may seem like corporate suicide, but Porsche sees it quite differently; the company is expecting 80% of Panamera customers to be new Porsche buyers, with a 1/3 of them coming from Asia. Basically, these are customers who would otherwise have driven straight past the showroom, which may explain their lofty goal of selling 20,000 of them a year, and therefore increasing their overall volume significantly.

Porsche, like any good business entity, needs to diversify to survive. So as ostentatious as the Panamera may seem, it is also the most sensible. It is their most ground breaking model since the Cayenne, and no expense or effort was spared – and no matter how hard I pressed, or how many rounds we ordered over the bar, not one of them would pin down a total development cost. But you can be sure it would probably be enough to buy Iceland.

The test drive itself covered over 600 breathtaking kilometers of the most naturally blessed terrain in Germany. From flowing mountain roads, to unrestricted autobahn, to quaint village streets, the Panamera strikes an incredibly difficult balance of power, prestige and luxury. Whatever you think it lacks in drama is soon sorted out with a stab of your right foot. And with its newly developed start stop system that switches the engine off automatically at idle, plus the announcement of the hybrid versions for next year, it has also become a sports saloon with a conscience.

Times are definitely changing. It’s about time the sports car companies caught up.