Porsche Panamera

All new Porsche Panamera pics here!

The four-door Panamera is already causing ripples.

“What's very interesting is that this is a whole new segment for us, and we're not sure just how it's going to pan out.”

The four-door, V8-powered grand tourer is likely to make its official motor-show debut at Detroit in January or Geneva in March.

“It's too early for us to talk about the car for Australia _ certainly too early to be thinking about sales numbers,” Winkler says.

“The segment it will compete in is a very small one with limited offerings. Mercedes-Benz sells about 250 S-Class cars a year at that level, and BMW a similar number of 7 Series.

“To be realistic, the Panamera is a performance car, and will probably be considered against the (Mercedes) AMG cars and BMW's M5.”

Winkler won't say it, but it's fair to assume that Porsche would be disappointed if it couldn't entice at least a couple of hundred buyers to the Panamera.

Most pundits believe other natural competitors for the Panamera will be the second-generation Maserati Quattroporte, due to be released soon, and Aston Martin's four-door Rapide, which should hit showrooms around the same time as the Panamera.

“They are very specialised vehicles that sell only a handful of cars here a year ... we would certainly hope to be selling more than that.”

Watching a Panamera punching out test laps at the Porsche track at Weissach, Winkler is moved to rationalise the logic of Porsche's first four-door sports car.

“It's half sports car and half luxury tourer ... it's so easy to forget when you're driving it that you have, in effect, another 911 at the back of you.

“You really have to think about how much car is behind you.”

It's precisely in that difference that Winkler sees an opportunity for the Panamera to bring new blood to the Porsche family.

“This is a very small, very select segment, but it does have the potential to have people who may never have thought about Porsche before considering a Panamera,” he says.

“From there, it's possible they may consider another Porsche _ maybe a Cayenne _ as a second car.”

Initially, the Panamera is expected to feature a pair of 4.8-litre V8s from the Cayenne and Cayenne Turbo models, but with power levels raised from the donor vehicle's 287kW and 373kW.

There's also a possibility that Porsche will migrate its under-development hybrid engine from the Cayenne into the Panamera _ a model where it would make ideal sense.

One certainty is that the new PDK double-clutch automatic gearbox will be the standard transmission for the new model.