Okay, if you've made the decision to get a Panamera, it's likely because it's the nearest thing to a 4 door 911 and among Panameras, this one is the nearest of all.
Let's drive the 2012 Panamera Turbo S and check the pack.
Any one of you who watched these videos know I've got an ongoing love hate relationship with the Panamera.
I love to drive it.
I hate to look at it and would hate to pay for it.
It's this big (fuzzy?) looking thing.
It was like a beast whale in any color.
Then when you go and paint it blue go white, are you kidding?
This is one seriously unattractive ride.
But that's not we're here for.
Let's get inside.
Now the inside of the Panamera is admittedly a very nice place to sit, go driving, take a nap, just about anything.
This is a nicely appointed car but it's very familiar at this point.
We've seen this new style of Porsche console which is kind of this high rising thing.
It keeps kinda button crazy down here on this sort of spine of buttons that are in sort of an order but not really, they just kinda got everything sprayed around here.
Not much of change up here though since the last Panamera we sought.
We have a good sort of a 3D fly overview available on the nav screen.
You've got hard buttons down here for all your major functions but this is also a touchscreen.
Now a Turbo S is only available of one gear box, the PDK which is some really long German phrase for double clutch manual and you've got this very simple gauge and you got your shift paddles.
Well really, what are these things?
Kinda like illuminized wedges to give you up and down shift on either side of an ambidextrous wheel or check this out.
Because we have a high trim with a PDK, you've got this really cool indicator.
It looks like it's had the name plate that tells you you got a PDK like you gotta be reminded of that but you've got this illuminating indicator, Sport, Sport plus and launch control on the right because you can put this thing into all those modes partly because we have a Sport chrono package.
That's what the chronometer on the dash tells you if you don't even see the spec sheet.
You have these two Sport buttons.
The Sport is gonna tighten up everything from shifting to throttle response to suspension behavior.
Sport Plus takes you into a lunch control mode and this is what's interesting.
This is your automatic start stop defeat button so when you come to a stop, it's gonna shut down, lift off the brake, it's gonna re-fire, you can defeat that here.
Our car has a reverse camera and you can see when I've got that up, you also have an overlay of the sonar map front and rear.
It's nice blending of indications.
I like when it's all together like that.
Gauges were almost entirely classic Porsche and I love they do the five ring thing but I love the one second from the right that's roughly 4.8 inch round display that can show just about any aspect of the main head unit which they call the PCM.
You can dedicate that to any part of it like audio there and map here.
Navigation as I mentioned is a good looking screen.
It is where I change my map view, you got a lot of choices here.
Not just the bird's eye, there's also the weather display and a satellite image.
Bluetooth hands free stock and when you do have a phone paired up, you can also do an A2DP Bluetooth streaming as part of this head unit base and whatever you're listening to, you've got two operate systems.
The standard rig is a (bow?) system 585 watts I think it is.
13 speakers plus a powered sub, that's gonna be a good sounding system but if you look at the script on our speakers, we got the big boy.
The $4,000 option, the Burmester sound system.
That gets you to 1,000 watts of oomph through a 16 channel surround sound and ribbon tweeter technology and a microphone somewhere in the cabin that lets the system adapt to various sorts of noise or interference inside the car real time.
By the way, I find this very telling, with all these books on the dash.
This isn't stage.
This is my work today.
I shoot about a 100 cars a year.
Most of them full of tech.
I show them how to break out these many manuals.
There's something (??) about the PCM head unit these guys operate.
Okay, now the engine of the Turbo S is a big part of the Panamera story when you go to this levels.
That's part of why it cost so damn much.
It's a 4.8 leader V8 with 2 discrete turbos.
And through wind turbos, you can see each one down the side of the motor right there.
You got direct (conjunction?) as well, VarioCam which is Porsche's very elaborate variable cam and timing system for a left hand event and then on top of all these, you got this beautiful engineering of a Porsche motor so everything happening here at a high level.
The result, 550 horsepower, 553 foot pounds of torque.
Get this 4398 pound beast up to 60 in 3.6 seconds.
Always going through all wheel drive, that's a given on a Turbo S and through that PDK 7-speed dual clutch gear box.
Or check this out.
Porsche loves the electric controllable rear wings, this one's sleek.
Look how it's segmented.
This reminds me of those...
IBM Thinkpads from the late 90's where they had the butterfly keyboard that comes up at a certain width and then it expands to give you more bite in the air when it's actually up.
Kinda cool.
The first thing you notice with this car is you got some real 911 (DNA?) in here.
That's a pretty good trick.
Now what you're totally aware of is you get a longer wheel base and a lot more car launch at (??) you're dealing with than a sports car.
This car has a lot to get around it.
All wheel drive is really helping of course, that tunes toward performance driving not toward off road.
The power comes on real nicely.
Twin turbos are great for that and either one of them has to do everything.
They only have one bank a piece and they can be very responsive so the power comes on like a bigger engine that is naturally aspirated.
Great exhaust built.
Steering is not electric on this car.
It's a advanced but hydraulic accessory driven power steering.
It feels good.
(Holden?) power feels good.
I gotta say as much as I think this car is ugly, pretentious, pompous, expensive, it's sure is enjoying to drive.
Okay, let's place our big turbo (??), this 2012 Porsche Panamera Turbo S top of the stack is 174 grand.
That includes most of the tech I showed you as well as the PDK dual clutch gear box and all whee drive.
However, there are few things you can add if you wanna round it up to 200.
First of all, (??) come in.
For some reason, not included 595 ala carte.
Go figure.
The rear seat charging cradle for your Smartphone, 890.
You could buy every charger at Best Buy for that much money.
I'd seriously blow off the rear seat entertainment system for 3 grand.
It's just not that cool.
Burmester audio is 4,000 on its own.
Adaptive cruise is 2,500.
We also have that.
Blind spot warning, another 850 and this is not even touching all the bespoke interior stuff you can do on a Porsche.
You can spend a week just configuring that stuff.
er but not really.
They just kinda got everything sprayed around here.
Not much of change up here though since the last Panamera we saw.
We have a good sort of a 3D fly overview available on the nav screen.
You've got hard buttons down here for all your major functions but this is also a touchscreen Now a Turbo S is only available of one gear box, the PDK which is some really long German phrase for double clutch manual and you've got this very simple gauge and you got your shift paddles.
Oh really, what are these things?
Kinda like illuminized wedges to give you up and down shift on either side of an ambidextrous wheel or check this out.
Because we have a high trim with a PDK, you've got this really cool indicator.
It looks like it's had the name plate that tells you you got a PDK like you gotta be reminded of that but you've got this illuminating indicator, sport...
Sport plus and launch control on the right because you can put this thing into all those modes partly because we have a sport chrono package.
That's what the chronometer on the dash tells you if you don't even see the spec sheet.
You have these two sport buttons.
The sport is gonna tighten up everything from shifting to (??) response to suspension behavior, sport plus takes you into a lunch control mode and this is what's interesting.
This is your automatic start stop defeat button so when you come to a stop, it's gonna shut down, lift off the brake, it's gonna re-fire, you can defeat that here.
Our car has a reverse camera and you can see when I've got that up, you also have an overlay of the sonar map front and rear.
It's nice blending of indications.
I like when it's all together like that.
Gauges were almost entirely classic Porsche and I love they do the five ring thing but I love the one second from the right that's roughly 4.8 inch round display that can show just about any aspect of the main head unit which they call the PCM.
You can dedicate that to any part of it like audio there and map here.
Navigation as I mentioned is a good looking screen.
It is where I change my map view, you got a lot of choices here.
Not just the bird's eye, there's also the weather display and a satellite image.
Bluetooth hands free stock and when you do have a phone paired up, you can also do an A2DP Bluetooth streaming as part of this head unit base and whatever you're listening to, you've got two operate systems.
The standard rig is a (boze?) system 585 watts I think it is.
13 speakers plus a powered sub, that's gonna be a good sounding system but if you look at the script on our speakers, we got the big boy.
The $4,000 option, the Burmester sound system.
That gets you to 1,000 watts of oomph through a 16 channel surround sound and ribbon tweeter technology and a microphone somewhere in the cabin that lets the system adapt to various sorts of noise or interference inside the car real time.
By the way, I find this very telling, with all these books on the dash.
This isn't stage.
This is my work today.
I shoot about a 100 cars a year.
Most of them full of tech.
I show them how to break out these many manuals.
There's something (??) about the PCM head unit these guys operate.
Okay, now the engine of the Turbo S is a big part of the Panamera story when you go to this levels.
That's part of why it cost so damn much.
It's a 4.8 leader V8 with 2 discrete turbos.
And through wind turbos, you can see each one down the side of the motor right there.
You got direct (conjunction?) as well, VarioCam which is Porsche's very elaborate variable cam and timing system for a left hand event and then on top of all these, you got this beautiful engineering of a Porsche motor so everything happening here at a high level.
The result, 550 horsepower, 553 foot pounds of torque.
Get this 4398 pound beast up to 60 in 3.6 seconds.
Always going through all wheel drive, that's a given on a Turbo S and through that PDK 7-speed dual clutch gear box.
Or check this out.
Porsche loves the electric controllable rear wings, this one's sleek.
Look how it's segmented.
This reminds me of those...
IBM Thinkpads from the late 90's where they had the butterfly keyboard that comes up at a certain width and then it expands to give you more bite in the air when it's actually up.
Kinda cool.
The first thing you notice with this car is you got some real 911 (DNA?) in here.
That's a pretty good trick.
Now what you're totally aware of is you get a longer wheel base and a lot more car launch at (??) you're dealing with than a sports car.
This car has a lot to get around it.
All wheel drive is really helping of course, that tunes toward performance driving not toward off road.
The power comes on real nicely.
Twin turbos are great for that and either one of them has to do everything.
They only have one bank a piece and they can be very responsive so the power comes on like a bigger engine that is naturally aspirated.
Great exhaust built.
Steering is not electric on this car.
It's a advanced but hydraulic accessory driven power steering.
It feels good.
(Holden?) power feels good.
I gotta say as much as I think this car is ugly, pretentious, pompous, expensive, it's sure is enjoying to drive.
Okay, let's place our big turbo (??), this 2012 Porsche Panamera Turbo S top of the stack is 174 grand.
That includes most of the tech I showed you as well as the PDK dual clutch gear box and all whee drive.
However, there are few things you can add if you wanna round it up to 200.
First of all, (??) come in.
For some reason, not included 595 ala carte.
Go figure.
The rear seat charging cradle for your Smartphone, 890.
You could buy every charger at Best Buy for that much money.
I'd seriously blow off the rear seat entertainment system for 3 grand.
It's just not that cool.
Burmester audio is 4,000 on its own.
Adaptive cruise is 2,500.
We also have that.
Blind spot warning, another 850 and this is not even touching all the bespoke interior stuff you can do on a Porsche.
You can spend a week just configuring that stuff.
