The Porsche Panamera is getting lukewarm write-ups, which is a shame. I’ve driven it and like it – I like its comfort, astonishingly fast ground-covering ability, and the utter predictability and linearity of its driving deportment (unlike the tail-wagging 911). The only thing I don’t like apart from its bulk – and I’m in worrying agreement with most of the other critics here – is the style. This is one ugly car.
The 4×4 Cayenne, of course, is also unsightly (not that that stopped it selling well, at least initially). And the Panamera is ugly for the same reason that the Cayenne is ugly.
They both try to look like 911s.
Now I’m sorry, but it is impossible to make a 4×4 or a four-door sports saloon (let’s hear no more semantic nonsense about four-door coupés!) look like a 911. A car stylist can no more make a big car look like a small sports car than a beautician can make Queen Latifah look like Naomi Campbell. The Cayenne looks like a 911 on giant platform shoes, while the Panamera is a 911 in a fat suit. Their proportions are all wrong.
It is of course quite possible to make 4x4s and saloons look sporty and desirable. The Range Rover Sport and the Mercedes CLS prove this. But it is not possible, Porsche take note, if you saddle your designers with a host of irrelevant styling cues from a 45-year-old sports car.
So next time the Stuttgart bosses launch a new non-911, they should forget about their sporting icon. Don’t let the designers anywhere near one! After all, they have proved they can design handsome non-911s. Remember the 928? It was not only probably the finest front-engine coupé of its era, but also one of the handsomest and most futuristic. And it didn’t look one bit like a 911.