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  The Panamera is full-on luxury with four real seats. Photo Gallery

Paul Gover road tests and reviews the Porsche Panamera on the first leg of its 17,000km trip around Australia.

The most important and controversial Porsche since the first one in the late 1940s has begun a 17,000-kilometre sales tour in Australia.

A pair of four-seater Panamera Porsches left Melbourne yesterday to lap Australia and begin the company's all-out assault on the luxury high ground held for so long by Mercedes-Benz and BMW. They will do a whistle-stop tour of Porsche dealerships and media outlets along the way, as well as doing dream drive work for the Make A Wish foundation.

The Panamera is full-on luxury with four real seats, but — despite being a front-engine layout — has maintained the rear-engined look that has been a Porsche signature since the beginning. Its styling is clearly related to the benchmark 911 but is more...expansive ...on all fronts. It's a car that looks better on the road than in pictures with a real presence, but will still take some adjustment.

It is priced from $270,200 for the V8-powered Panamera S, with the 4S clocking it from $282,400 and the all-wheel drive Turbo powerhouse starting at $364,900.

The car comes with all the luxury stuff you expect — leather, aircon, CD sound with iPod plug-ins, electric seats and the rest — but it's all about the way it drives.

Porsche is planning to sell around 200 cars next year and the first local deliveries will begin early in October. But two cars were air-freighted down under to begin the gruelling Panamera Right Round Down Under drive, which can be followed through a dedicated microsite on the web.

Driving:
The Panamera is a Porsche alright, but not as we know it. The styling screams Porsche and so does the interior detailing, from the look and feel of the controls to the predominant tachometer, and my first stomp on the accelerator in the Panamera S unleashed a typical Porsche flurry.

Doing the same job later in the day in the Turbo, somewhere remote between Melbourne and Adelaide, proved it is a genuine Porsche powerhouse. But people want to know more about the Panamera.

It is a big car for four people yet it is not compromised by the need to drive like a Porsche. There is good space in the rear, the tailed buckets give plenty of support if the driver wants to have some fun, and the list of luxury extras goes all the way from DVD entertainment to a fridge.

As a driver, the car feels ... different. The closest comparison is probably with the Maserati Quattroporte, not a Benz or BMW. It feels squat and well balanced, turns like no other Porsche, and is suitably rewarding to drive. But the Panamera is at the start of a long journey in every way and it will take time to form a definite opinion. So there is more to come ...