Porsche of West Houston
11890 Katy Freeway Houston, TX 77079Sales: 800-390-4115
- Service: 800 387-6041
- Parts: 800-381-5260
Vehicle Reviews
2010 Porsche Panamera
Historic new four-door sedan worthy of the Porsche name. edited by Kirk Bell
Driving Impressions
The Porsche Panamera is enjoyable to drive and it's easy to drive. The Turbo delivers breathtaking performance that's almost too easy to control. The standard Panamera S feels lighter and livelier, however, and is more entertaining on winding roads. The four-wheel-drive Panamera 4S falls between the two. All three have that feeling of being carved from one solid block of rigid aluminum.
That's probably due to the car's advanced engineering and extensive use of lightweight aluminum and magnesium for portions of the body structure. The engine uses a dry sump oiling system rather than a standard oil pan so it can sit low in the chassis, and Porsche has placed it as far back as possible.
The Panamera comes with two forms of adjustable suspension, a standard system with gas shocks, and a full air suspension in the Turbo. The suspension adjustments allow the Panamera to drive like a luxury car or a racetrack-ready sports sedan, and it always feels smaller than its considerable size (which slots between a BMW 5 Series and a 7 Series). Most adjustable suspensions are either too soft or too firm. That's not the case with the Panamera. The base suspension's Comfort mode provides a smooth but controlled ride, while the Sport setting makes the car react quicker without ruining the ride. The Turbo's adaptive air suspension adds a firmer Sport Plus mode that's tuned for driving on a track or twisty road. The air suspension can also lower the car one inch for better handling and raise it 0.78 inch to help the front end clear curbs. Porsche also offers Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control (PDCC), which comes with active anti-roll bars. To counteract body lean in turns, the system twists the roll bars to make them firmer. The system can also disconnect the roll bars to improve straight-line comfort on bumpy roads. Given all these controls, you can transform the Panamera from firm and race-track ready to smooth and refined with the touch of a couple of buttons.
We had the opportunity to test the Panamera's potential on the 14-turn, 4.1-mile Road America road course in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. Though large and heavy, the Panamera was at home on this long racetrack, with quick, communicative steering and a relatively flat attitude through turns (especially with PDCC). The Panamera's willingness to change direction and respond to driver inputs puts it in a league with the world's best sports sedans (such as the BMW M5).
Road America has a lot of long straights, and the Panamera's brakes weren't entirely up to that challenge, exhibiting a pulsation that may have indicated warped rotors. On the road, the brakes are more than enough to be perfectly capable. Drivers intending to drive their Panameras on a race track or tackle twisty mountain roads on a regular basis should consider opting for the expensive but impressive composite ceramic brakes.
The Panamera is very fast. The base V8 in the S and 4S models provides more power than anyone really needs. It offers willing response across at all rev ranges, starting with a burst and delivering plenty of passing punch. With rear-drive in the Panamera S, 0-60 mph takes just 5.2 seconds. The all-wheel-drive system in the 4S does a better job of putting the power down, cutting the time to 4.8 seconds, in spite of its additional weight. Add the Sport Chrono Plus package with its launch control feature and both 0-60 times are 0.2 seconds quicker.
The 500-horsepower 4.8-liter V8 in the Turbo is brutally fast, knocking the 0-60 time down to 3.6 seconds with launch control. Kick the throttle and the power knocks you back in your seat, not letting up until you do, or 188 mph, whichever comes first, though we didn't check this last feature. Thanks to standard direct injection, turbo lag is minimal, if at all existent. Sure, the Turbo is overkill, but we like it.
The seven-speed PDK automated manual transmission works well as a smooth automatic if left in Drive, and becomes race-ready when the driver chooses the Sport or Sport Plus modes, which hold gears longer to make power more readily available. Those who want to shift manually, can tap the steering wheel buttons in any mode. We found that the Sport Plus mode chose the appropriate gear for track driving 95 percent of the time.
For all that power, the Panamera goes fairly easy on gas. It comes with a start/stop feature that imperceptibly turns the engine off at stoplights to conserve fuel. EPA fuel economy estimates are 16 mpg city/24 mpg highway for the S models and 15/23 mpg for the Turbo. No Panamera is subject to a Gas Guzzler tax.
