There was already a desire to build a comfortable, spacious Porsche’s with room for four back in the 1950s: but something went awry, leading an unconvinced Ferry Porsche to instruct his team to rather “do what we know how to do well” – in other words, sports cars – and pave the way for the magical 911. But the idea for a four door Porsche still lingered in the air. It was picked up again in 1969, with an attempt to stretch the 911, and was on the table once more in the 1970s, when the outlines for the future 924 and 928 were being laid out: but each time, the project was cancelled. It finally looked like it was going to happen in the late 1980s, with Ulrich Bez as head of R&D. He wanted to extend the range, and believed that a four seater sedan was the most logical choice. This spawned project 989, which was greenlighted in the summer of 1989, but once again, everything ground to a halt: when Bez left Porsche in September 1991, the company dropped the 989 – the car most closely linked with his name. The costs for the project were also spiralling out of control, and Porsche would have had to sell many more units than envisaged (and realistically possible) to cover its investments. It was only once Wedeking took the helm of the company in the 2000s that the topic of a fourth product line – a sedan – was broached again. The design was entrusted to Michael Mauer, with a very clear proviso: the car had to be unequivocally recognisable as a 100% Porsche. The name chosen was Panamera – a contraction of Panamericana, a word inseparably associated with the Carrera. But mechanically speaking, the Panamera is the progeny of the Cayenne. It was decided from the outset that the car would have eight cylinder engines only and rear or all wheel drive, and be priced between 80,000 and 100,000 Euros. Presented at Shanghai in 2009, it was instantly an extraordinary success: in just its first year on sale, 222,518 orders were received – over 2500 more than expected, despite the severe global recession.
Engine: V8
Capacity: 4.8 litres
Power: 500 bhp
Top speed: 303 km/h
