Porsche Panamera. Racing taxi.

Porsche Panamera. Race Taxi

The idea, as they say, was lying on the surface. For instance, rally drivers have been moonlighting as taxi drivers for years, ferrying sponsors and other important persons around special stages in combat mode. And the McLaren team even specially built a two-seat Formula 1 race car, where, like in a training aircraft, sitting right behind the pilot, selected lucky ones can get their fill of fear and feel all the delight of crazy, almost cosmic overloads.

But all that is quite extreme, accessible only to a select few. From now on, this kind of leisure will become a bit more accessible. Recently, a car has appeared on sale that seriously claims the laurels of a race taxi.

And we've seen worse...

The debut of the Porsche Panamera executive sedan did not cause such a wave of general curiosity as one might expect. And it's understandable—fans of the company from Zuffenhausen have seen worse. When the Cayenne appeared on the market, it was noisy, yes. Be that as it may, German marketers have no doubt about the success of the ambitious debutant, calling the Panamera nothing less than the world's first 4-seat sports car. On a not-too-fine October morning, I had the opportunity to uncover its talents myself. One of the first Panameras to reach Russia was tested by Automania.ru.

And I must admit right away—it caused a fit of puppyish delight in me even before I saw the car in the flesh. It was enough just to look at the ignition key. Believe me, it's something unimaginable! After all sorts of smart cards, key fobs with folding blades, and other keyless systems, it seemed impossible to surprise me in this regard. How wrong I was! Imagine, the Panamera key fob is shaped like a toy car, just without wheels. What a charm! Well, shall we play and frolic?

Watch your fingers

I press the button, and the Panamera playfully blinks its turn signals at me. But to hell with flirtation—now I'm dead serious. After walking a couple of appraising circles around the car, I come to a quite unambiguous conclusion—in terms of exterior, the Panamera is not much more attractive than the Cayenne, whose appearance is, to put it mildly, quite controversial. From a distance, the debutant even resembles the controversial crossover, just with a low ground clearance. Otherwise, the similarity is very evident—recognizable headlight geometry, steep fender curves, characteristic sleek rear end.

By the way, the Panamera doesn't have a separate trunk like a classic sedan. The rear part of the car is more like a hatchback or even a fastback, and access to the luggage compartment is via a fifth door with transparent glass. It opens, of course, with an electric drive, revealing a fairly spacious interior upholstered in expensive fabric. Hmm, putting anything less pompous than Louis Vuitton suitcases here just doesn't feel right. Lacking those, I quickly inspect the trunk. Under the false floor hides a set of tools and a warning triangle. Nothing special, in short. Here also is a housing amplifier with the unfamiliar engraving Burmester. Probably only hardcore audiophiles know that this German manufacturer of Hi-end equipment enjoys the widest popularity in the narrowest circles.

Excuse me, what are these buttons? A pair of keys perched on the rear wall of the trunk with not-at-all-obvious, barely explanatory pictograms, of course, aroused a burning desire to poke my fingers at them. No sooner said than done. Immediately, somewhere in the Porsche's innards, something barely audibly rustled, and after a few seconds, I got a painful hit on the leg. Ouch, what kind of jokes are these?... It turned out that the mysterious button is the switch for the electric drive of the tow hitch! The towing hook made of solid metal emerged from its hiding place under the Panamera's floor and whacked me on the ankle. Painful, damn it!

After doing the same operation again, but from a safe distance, I suddenly realized that the electric tow hitch is a unique accessory in its own right. After all, it can be used not only for its direct purpose—that is, towing trailers with yachts—but also, so to speak, as a means of communication with other road users. Or is it just me, due to my own depravity, imagining analogies with an extended middle finger?..

Not our color

That's enough, perhaps, of dangerous associations. I open the door and dive inside. The seating comfort is somewhere between the ultra-uncomfortable Cayman and the Cayenne, which poses no problems in this regard. Inside, I'm greeted by the traditional Porsche sporty styling. The Panamera's interior is finished in light beige tones. Everything around is bathed in this noble color: seats, dashboard, door trims, roof pillars, ceiling, and even the thick carpets, which I can't bring myself to call by the plebeian word "mats." It all looks, of course, luxurious, but I'm sure that beige is unlikely to be in demand among domestic buyers. Our people have long preferred everything black.

But the center console, whose design resembles ultra-expensive Vertu mobile phones, will, I think, appeal to many. But my God, how many buttons are scattered here—my eyes are darting! On both sides of the selector for the PDK robotic gearbox are keys and a pair of micro-displays for dual-zone climate control, along with adjustments for shock absorber stiffness, stability control settings, forced raising of the rear spoiler, and even a switch for the Start-Stop system.

Most of the "beard" is occupied by a huge color display that shows information from all sources. And the Panamera has, as they say, a full stadium of them. Here you have music control, onboard computer settings, and, of course, a navigation system. What's especially pleasant is that everything is Russified! Hurray, finally, in Zuffenhausen, they've seriously addressed the problems and aspirations of clients from the former USSR. True, there was a small hiccup with the Russification itself. I engage reverse gear, and the multifunction display immediately shows an image from the camera and a warning message "Check surroundings." Yes, exactly like that—without the letter 't'...

Okay—let's move on. The error will be fixed sooner or later, but the delightful seats will always be in the Panamera! By calling their creation the world's first 4-seat sports car, Zuffenhausen didn't sin against the truth. The real decoration of the interior is the quartet of individual anatomical seats. Yes, yes, rear passengers won't feel deprived of anything. They have at their disposal delightful bucket seats, a set of electric adjustments, and a full sense of unity with the car, even when it's parked. Of course, as befits a luxury car, the big Porsche also provides multimedia entertainment for those sitting in the back. Monitors are built into the headrests of the front seats, but, honestly, watching movies in the Panamera is almost a crime.

Fasten your seatbelts, we're taking off!

I start the engine. Unlike classic Porsche sports cars, this process happens without the ignition key. You just need to turn the lever to the left of the steering wheel, and the car, having identified the electronic tag built into the toy key fob, will command the five hundred horses: "Company, rise!". They wake up, by the way, without complaint, but somehow very quietly. You wouldn't even guess that a V-shaped turbo-eight has come to life under the hood from the driver's seat. And in general, the first meters of movement in the Panamera don't resemble classic Porsches at all. The fact is that the car doesn't require a pointedly polite attitude towards itself. You don't need to get used to the heaviness of the clutch or the ultra-short throws of the gearbox. Why, since we have an "automatic." The fairly spacious and bright interior doesn't press with authority or a roof hanging over your head, and the suspension seems quite civilian, not at all extreme. In the standard mode of the shock absorbers, the Panamera rolls over speed bumps and slaps over the cobblestones of tram tracks no worse than the average "golf"-class hatchback.

And so I'm confidently rolling from traffic light to traffic light—today, as always, Moscow traffic doesn't give room for maneuver. No bad without good. Monotonous movement in the flow reveals the car's main problem—it's terrible visibility. And in any direction. Thick roof pillars and protruding arches don't allow you to properly feel the front dimensions, the modest embrasure of the fifth door determines problems with the rear, and the significant width complicates parallel parking at the curb.

But why are we talking about boring matters, really? A small gap has formed ahead. Ah, that's what we need! I stop at the roadside and, letting the cars ahead go further, decide to finally test the abilities of the 500 horses that have been bored so far. For starters—in the normal mode of the gearbox and the dynamic stability system. On your marks, get set—go! The accelerator pedal is floored, and, driving my head into the fortunately soft headrest, the Panamera lunged forward.

It became scary almost immediately. On a dry and flat stretch of asphalt, the huge sedan started to be pulled from side to side due to excessive power! This lasted only a fraction of a second, after which, having decided that there was already more than enough adrenaline in my blood, the car, as if coming to its senses, rushed forward at a speed far exceeding the pace of a courier train. A hundred and fifty on the speedometer came so quickly that I didn't have time to say 'Mom!' And the cars I had passed, which seemed at least a kilometer ahead, were again 'crawling' right in front of the hood. Ugh, damn it! I brake quite sharply to avoid an undesirably close contact with other road users, and at the same time smoothly, taking pity on the passengers. The poor fellows are already having a hard time... No, they aren't yet nauseous like the clients of Marseille taxi driver Daniel, but the sweat on their foreheads and dilated pupils indicate—it's only for now.

I turn around at the intersection—today everything is allowed!—and decide to make another dragster run over a quarter mile. I won't humiliate the DSG gearbox with manual shifting mode—its electromechanical brains work much faster than human reflexes. But I'll press the Sport button, which activates a comprehensive system of settings for more active driving.

Well, the car coped faster with the rocking at start, which then didn't disappear completely. I don't rule out that the 'swaying' of the rear was programmed by Stuttgart engineers on purpose. Why not let the car tickle your nerves, while actually remaining under the vigilant control of the stability systems all the time?! And now I'm boldly flooring the gas and provoking the car with the steering wheel in a corner—the rear slightly breaks into a slide, which ESP turns after a couple of moments into a confident and fully controlled drift on all four wheels. My God, am I really trying to drive with a drift in a business-class sedan? I cast a quick glance at the sofa and, assessing the condition of the passengers, realize it's time to take a pause, otherwise the next item on the program will be a trip to the dry cleaner.

You haven't seen this yet!

Well, the engineers from Zuffenhausen managed to surprise once again. The Panamera may not resemble classic Porsche sports cars too much, but it has its own special stature. Luxury cars that allow you to take corners in a controlled drift, though rare, do exist. But I don't know of another car in the executive segment that encourages and even incites this. Therefore, it turns out that the Panamera is an exclusive in the full sense of the word. A unique machine that, with the sum of its merits, justifies the price tag of over 8 million rubles.

Dmitry Anatolyev

Technical characteristics of Porsche Panamera turbo

Source – AUTOMANIA.RU