Porsche have brought into India the second-generation Panamera, increasing the blow from an uppercut to a knockout.
Story: Jim Gorde
Photography: Sanjay Raikar
You know those bags which feel like magic? The ones that swallow everything you have to put in, and still feel like a small handbag when you have to take it around? That’s what this is. It’s over five metres long, nearly two metres wide and weighs a smudge under two tonnes, before I get into it, that is; and it behaves like any good sports car would on the move. It doesn’t feel as large, the steering is perfectly weighted and it can corner just as well. Of course, factor in that you have two more seats and two more doors and you begin to realise how good a car it really is!
It’s been around for a while now, the Panamera, and even though the purists spoke of heresy and condemned the four-door, it stayed. Many had conflicting views on its appearance too, but when the engine got to work and the cylinders spoke, the critics were silenced. Yes, it’s a Porsche. Yes, it has four doors and four seats, and it commands a price-tag, which, strangely enough, almost seems to justify itself, with many manufacturers offering standard luxury sedans, if we could have the liberty to call them that, with price-tags much higher than what the Panamera demands. So what’s the big deal then? What’s really new?
For starters, the second-gen model gains about two inches length-wise, while the proportions remain the same elsewhere. Stand beside it in the parking lot and it goes on and on, like one of those reports which says ‘page 1 of 2’; you keep walking alongside, continuing to take in more of the car. The design has changed ever subtly, but a sharp eye will identify the changes: the headlamp clusters are smoother and now feature bi-xenon headlamps as standard, with full LED headlamps – the ones you see here – offered as an option, complete with the dipped and main beam units encircled by LED daytime running lights. The central lower air dam also features revised slats. At the rear, meanwhile, the tail-lamp cluster is completely redesigned, with two long strips of red adorned by a new turn indicator strip below. The reverse light, too, is small, but rather powerful.
