Porsche green-lights the Panamera

Four-door Porker due out in 2009: official

By PH Staff / Thursday, 28 July 2005 / Loading comments

Porsche Panamera

Porsche's top brass has officially given the green light to manufacture the Panamera, its first four-door four-seat car. The company's supervisory board and the board of management gave their go-ahead yesterday for the development and production of a fourth Porsche model, scheduled to enter the market in 2009.

Porsche described the car as "a premium class sports coupé". The front-engined, rear-wheel drive car will be powered by various engines. The name is derived from the legendary Carrera Panamericana long-distance race.

The car is sure to upset a bunch of manufacturers, prime among them being BMW, whose M5 will compete, and VW, whose Bentley range will also be seen as a rival by buyers.

Stuttgart will pour more than €1 billion of its own money into the development and manufacture of the car, and expects to sell "at least 20,000 units" annually. Over a three-year period, that works out to an investment of a tad over £10,000 per car -- though we suspect you might expect the price tag to be heftier than that.

Porsche boss Dr Wendelin Wiedeking said: "We have indeed taken a lot of time in making this decision. But now we know one thing for sure: the Panamera is the right car for Porsche, as it has all that typical DNA characteristic of a genuine sports car. In terms of performance, design, and driving dynamics it meets Porsche's high standards in every respect. Through this sports coupé we are making our customers an attractive offer in the top performance segment."

Wiedeking said that Porsche will be developing and building the Panamera using the company's own resources: "We will be developing a separate platform for our fourth model series in Weissach. There are no plans for a joint venture with another car maker. But to ensure the profitability of this new model series we will cooperate more closely than so far with selected system suppliers."

Production of the Panamera is to be in Leipzig, where Porsche already builds the Cayenne and the Carrera GT high-performance sportscar. The final decision will require further detailed talks at the plant between bosses and workers.

This would also require a major extension of the assembly hall, already in operation today, which would begin in 2006/2007. Should the site be chosen for production of the Panamera it would potentially create some 600 new jobs in Leipzig. In the course of the project approximately 400 more new jobs will be created at Porsche's original plant in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen, where the engines for the fourth model series will be built, and at the Weissach Development Centre.

About 70 per cent of the Panamera will be built in Germany.