If you look up what the most beautiful sedan in the world is, you won’t find a picture of a Porsche Panamera. Still, that didn’t stop Porsche from figuring out visual weighting and hard contours and finally making a handsome sedan for the 2017 model year. Unfortunately, the second-generation Panamera’s time is up, and the third-generation 2024 Porsche Panamera is set to be a mildly shocking sight in your rearview mirror. Still, try to keep its face in the back of your mind, because behind that vent-laden front bumper sits some impressive go-fast tech.
First, a bit of sad news for wagon fans: There is no new Panamera Sport Turismo, nor will there likely ever be one. British car magazine Autocar reports that “This new-generation model marks the end of the Sport Turismo estate, which made up less than 10% of sales.” From now on, it seems like Porsche will only field the Taycan in the ultra-quick wagon segment, so if you’ve always wanted a Panamera Sport Turismo, act now before it’s too late.
Anyway, back to the new 2024 Porsche Panamera (whose press release you can read here). It’s still a five-door liftback, it’s still primarily powered by gasoline, and it still has the potential to be monstrously quick. However, we need to talk about the way this new car looks, because it’s arguably a step backwards.
Let’s start at the front, where there’s a lot going on. An extra intake in the bumper conjures up hints of first-generation Cayenne Turbo, which I don’t think anyone was looking to emulate anytime soon. A European number plate definitely mitigates some of the weirdness, but the result is a fishy appearance, with the rather far back hood shut line certainly not helping. Oh, and then there are the headlight silhouettes, rounded up top and pointy at the bottom. Top-weighted headlights don’t typically look good, and overall, I’m a little bit amazed the new Porsche Panamera made it out of the studio with this face. Then again, the original Cayenne is starting to look decent, so who knows? Maybe this front end will age in.
Around the back, things are also a little bit challenging. The new 992-inspired full-width taillight treatment sits in a massive glossy black plastic bezel that just looks heavy. Also, while the old Panamera’s taillights blended that blunt horizontal trim piece with the curved top of the bumper, that’s a hard division on the new car. This wouldn’t be a huge deal if one could infer a single curved line from rear glass to bumper, but the surfacing is set up in a way that you can’t quite do that. The result is a slightly awkward rear end, albeit not nearly as awkward as the face of this Panamera.
The base Panamera is powered by a 2.9-liter twin-turbocharged V6, and it should get out-dragged by a BMW M340i. Sure, 348 horsepower isn’t anything to sneeze at, especially knowing the size of German horses, but Porsche quotes a zero-to-62 mph time of 5.1 seconds. Given a long enough runway, the base Panamera will out-run a Kia Stinger GT with a top speed just two mph faster than the Korean liftback, but we’ll need to figure out where the plane scene from Fast & Furious 6 was filmed if we ever wanted to test that out. The Panamera 4 pairs the same engine as the base model with all-wheel-drive, shaving three tenths of a second from its zero-to-62 mph time but losing 1.24 mph from the two-wheel-drive model in the top end.
Want more power? For now, you’ll have to wait. Porsche will slowly roll out the typical lineup of more powerful models including a 670-horsepower Turbo E-Hybrid PHEV model, but those aren’t ready quite yet. However, in due time, the new Panamera will gain the pace you’d expect from a Porsche, with the quickest models running from zero-to-62 mph in the low three-second range. Oh, and that Turbo E-Hybrid gets a whole bunch of extra cosmetic and performance goodies, from center-lock wheels to new grey badges in line with Porsche’s new Turbo branding.
However, the suspension underneath the Panamera is far more intriguing than the powertrain lineup. Standard fitment is two-chamber air suspension with adaptive dampers for improved compression and rebound control, but things get really interesting on E-Hybrid models where active suspension joins the party. On these electrified variants, each damper is connected to a hydraulic pump using a hydraulic line. The pump can then pre-pressurize each damper, theoretically providing more effective damping over everything from frost heaves to potholes. Plus, it should effectively flatten out body roll, squat under hard acceleration, and dive under hard braking without the need to lean on anti-roll bars. The tradeoff is that this suspension setup comes with single-chamber air suspension, but that doesn’t sound like a bad deal to make.
On the inside, the 2024 Porsche Panamera has a whole lot of shiny black stuff going on. However, once you take your eyes off that fingerprint-attracting center console, you begin to notice a few things. Firstly, that all-digital instrument cluster is similar to what’s seen in the current Cayenne and Taycan, so don’t be surprised to see it in more upcoming Porsches. Also downloaded from other mainstream Porsches? Check out the dashboard-mounted electronic gear selector freeing up center console space for cupholders and whatnot, and the passenger screen because everyone has goldfish-like attention spans these days.
Luxurious, brimming with interesting go-fast parts, and unquestionably challenging to look at, the 2025 Porsche Panamera is a proper Panamera indeed. Expect base models to go on sale in the spring, starting at a strong $101,550 for the base two-wheel-drive model. Will the eventual S E-Hybrid model feature an electrified turbo V6? We’ll just have to wait and see, but whatever powertrain that model lands with, I have a feeling it might be the sweet spot.
(Photo credits: Porsche)
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
-
The 2024 Porsche Cayenne Turbo E-Hybrid Is An Absurdly Powerful Way Of Complying With Emissions Standards
-
The 2024 Porsche Cayenne Is What Happens When German Engineers Spend 20 Years Meticulously Optimizing An SUV. And Then Throw In More V8 Goodness
-
The 2024 Porsche Cayenne Embraces The V8
-
Porsche’s Massive ‘Rennsport Reunion’ Showed Me Just How Powerful The Porsche Brand Is: Which Other Brand Could Pull This Off?
-
Holy Crap, The Lightweight Porsche 911 GT3 R Rennsport Makes 612 Glorious, Naturally-Aspirated Horsepower
Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage.
Oh Thomas, what an optimist you are! I would love a Panamera wagon, sure, but the idea of me having to “act now before it’s too late” implies that I have the slightest chance of getting one new, instead of having to wait for it to become a dilapidated old car – and before today’s kids age into AI millionaire influencers or whatnot and decides that they are by then a classic.
How Audi got things so right with the A7 but Porsche got things so wrong with the Panamera will always be something to talk about
Honestly I can’t tell the difference. They changed how it looks?
Love your writing Thomas, but before and after pictures would be great.
Wagon was the only reason I was ever interested in a Panamermaermermaremaaa, it fixes the proportions by visually adding more mass in back, and looks way more attractive from a profile and rear 3/4 view. Now that the wagon is gone, I can not care about these ever again.
My thoughts exactly. The wagon fixed the awkward proportions. No wagon = no care.
Meh. I still think the current generation Volvo V90 is the best looking station wagon on the market at this time. except the steering wheel. That Volvo steering wheel is atrocious.
The V90 only comes in Crosscountry now with the plastic fender flares and whatnot which makes the V60 the best looking wagon.
I like the plastic since I get mud all over it lugging canoes to the river. But that’s me.
With the fancy new suspension I hope they learned a lesson from early 2000s Mercedes and didn’t route the lines in places that are near impossible to service. Otherwise I’m 20 years the world will be littered with slammed, undrivable Panameras waiting either for a heroic mechanic or the scrapper.
Ugh. I’m card carrying Parsh fan but this is just awful. It’s way too busy, way too bulbous, and overall just not very tasteful. BMW gets a lot of shit for their designs, and a lot of it is earned, but all of the German premium brands are falling into similar traps. They’re all sprinting away from what made them great in the name of trying to appeal to the conspicuous consumption/influencer type crowd.
Which means more is more across the board. MORE STYLING! MORE SCREENS! MORE TECH! MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE BECAUSE IT NEEDS TO STAND OUT ON TIK TOK! NO PRESS IS BAD PRESS!
And as a result we get abominations like this with exteriors they wouldn’t stop designing, haptic/screen centric Apple Store tech dystopia interiors, and additional failure points all over the damn car. It’s a damn shame that Porsche of all brands is falling into the exact same trap as every luxury brand…because Porsche has always stood for something more.
To be fair, they still have the 718 and 911, and they remain as desirable as ever. But for a while you could still get little touches of the true Porsche experience in their more useful packages, and for folks like me that can’t afford to drop a bunch of money on a weekend car, stretching for something like a Macan or certified Panamera has been an aspiration for a while now.
But for an overly complex tech monstrosity like this? No thanks. I guess the plus is that the 2nd gen Panameras are about to drop in value, and they’re hands down the best looking sedan Porsche has ever made. Maybe a pure ICE, rear wheel drive one will be an appealing entry level (by Porsche standards) option for the next couple of years.
Combining that burnt orange color with the super busy front end, I thought the author of this article chose to use a Brabus (or similar ugly after-market company) body-kitted Panamera for the thumb-nail photo, but nope, that’s just the new Panamera. Not great at all, and it will age particularly poorly.
Also, as someone who shops a lot of used cars your point about it being expensive and inconvenient in 10-20 years is likely spot on; but Porsche does not, nor any OEM, make money from the sale of used cars, so if they sell more cars now because of the screens, they couldn’t care less about the future value/cost.
The thing about modern Porsches is they tend to be more reliable and more well sorted than other used German luxury cars are. Are they cheap or pain free to own secondhand? Of course not, but there are thousands of pages of threads, tons of specialized mechanics, and an overall extremely dedicated community that can help you figure shit out…not to mention their certified program is is ridiculously good.
I believe they’ll certify cars up to 12 or 13 years old with up to 120,000 miles on the clock…and you get a full two year warranty. I think these are some of the reasons why modern Porsches never really bottom out price wise. If you’re going to take on a fancy used German car they’re usually your best bet.
But you’re right. These, BMWs, Mercedes, etc. are just lease machines for the 1% at the end of the day. My endless CarFax sleuthing has led me to conclude that their first owner will keep them for 1-3 years and will either baby them or absolutely abuse them with little in between. The babied ones will get certified, the abused ones will wind up sold as plain used at suspiciously low prices.
Their second owner, who probably visits this site regularly, will love them very dearly and for as long as it’s financially feasible. But once they hit owner 3 or 4 they begin the slow descent to becoming a hooptie…and while Porsches are never CHEAP cheap there are countless roached out first gen Panameras out there in the 20s and low 30s.
I hope to nab a certified Porsche one day, because my only hope of being able to afford a new one in the next 5 years or so would be a pretty base Macan…and that just seems disappointing to me. Ergo, bring on the certified 2nd gen Panameras, baby. There will be 22/23s on lots in a few years for 60k or so, and that’s a metric fuck ton of car for that price….until the haptic interior goes haywire ????
I didn’t know Porsche was CPOing cars that old, but I suppose it makes sense with how many older Boxsters and 911s I still see on the road. This then raises the question, if the Boxsters and 911s are the interesting cars that are still sought after and haven’t really bottomed out, will the same be true for an oddly proportioned luxury sedan? It seems to me that Porsche’s standing-out reliability and longevity-wise applies greatly to the 911 and Boxster, but less so to the Macan, Panamera, and Cayenne.
And that’s pretty simple…the Boxster/Cayman (up until the 718) and 911s have Porsche flat 6s, and the 718s have Porsche flat 4s or 6s. The other ones share powertrains with the rest of VAG…and we all know what that means….goddammit I’ve talked myself out of a certified Panamera again haven’t it?
I would love to buy one of the current generation wagons in 10 years when they go for 20k,what is life without risk.
I like Porsches in general, but I don’t get the point of these fish mouth things. If an alien visited and saw a Panamera, he would assume it’s just resting on land before it dives back into the ocean to devour more krill.
Also, regarding the interior picture, why is the center console so big? Is the engine in there?
This post sent me down the never-ending rabbit hole of what is and is not a station wagon. I’m not sure what definition the EPA uses for a station wagon, but all versions of the ’23 Panamera are “Large Cars” and not station wagons.
The list of what the EPA does consider to be a Station Wagon is full of cars that you and I (and probably most consumers) would consider to be crossovers. Nissan Kicks and KIA Soul are on the list, for example. The only cars I see on the list that I would consider to be a station wagon are the Volvo V60 & V90, Audi A4 & A6, and Mercedes E450.
I think the ship has long sailed.
I suppose the gaping maws makes it simpler to determine which car on the lot is an ICE and which is the EV…?
Have a Sport Turismo because my large dog fits in the back for cross country trips. I’m biased but the long roof just looks better!
Mixed feelings- I have an ST Turbo as I much prefer the roofline to the sedan. The turbo version is not at all common , basically because they were very expensive. Still, there will be no more, so I will hand onto mine.
I love a good Panamera, but their cost of ownership is already painful and this seems like it’s going to be even more expensive
I am not a Porsche fan but admit they do make some nice cars. I really don’t think any of the proposed design features shown here are that bad. Sure thefront end is a huge gaping maw under the headlights but I don’t think it’s ugly. I feel Porsche is growing into new lines of vehicles but the media is suffering from growing pains similar to when a child actor goes from Disney to more mature genres. Only Taylor Swift has successfully maintained aging to 40 and still bubblegum pop music. The most successful career skill ever. But maybe Porsche would be more successful with stepping out of the genre if they did the Toyota/Acura thing?
That is absolutely not a thing, just more of your usual gibberish.
What having 2 lines differentiated by style levels doesn’t exist? Toyota common Acura upscale? I am pretty sure that is a thing.
Ah, Mr. Sarcastic, always certain, rarely correct. Taylor Swift is 33.
Often drunk, per his own comments. Often enough that his sober ones are almost as bad.
The constant screen-name changes don’t hide who he is.
I don’t know what is going on with this trend of trying to make the cars look faster, with an “agressive” style.
Ok, it is a Porsche, is meant to look fast, but this new front end looks a bit exaggerated.
Laughs in MBs ABC system.
The Panamera wagon was the good looking one! Way outta my price range, but I’ll miss it, just like I miss Volvo’s V90 wagon.
Best fast Wagon deal ever Dodge Magnum. Speed per dollar Noone does it better than Dodge.
Prove me wrong.
I dug the Magnum (and was surprised when they axed it… for a while there, they were everywhere!) but the way the back of the roof sloped down made for a pretty tight opening, moreso even than other ‘speedy looking’ wagons where style ends up impacting practicality. I know it’s not as graceful, but the straight, horizontal roofline like on old Volvo wagons… that makes for a nice cavernous interior.
Yeah, they should drop the sedan and keep the more attractive wagon.
You’re right, and have sales of the Panamera completely collapse.
Why have only 10% of people buy the Panamera Sport Turismo, when you can just have 10% of the sales by no longer offering the sedan?
Hey, now I personally liike the wagon, but you actually have to look at the numbers. If only 1 in 10 buy the wagon, you don’t eliminate the body style that 9 out of 10 people buy unless you want to be talked about in the future like other massive sales failures.
That makes sense because they’re German. They know better than you what you want. 😉
And, to be honest, if Porsche had eliminated the sedan and kept only the wagon version, I don’t think sales would drop a bit, because they’re too similar in the first place. They’d just have to keep referring to the remaining model as a sedan.