Price + spec news – what will the new Porsche Panamera be priced at in SA?

As Porsche’s take 2 on the 1st sedan/fastback-type luxury car from Porsche, the new Panamera is shipping to South Africa to be parked in all of its 4 local dealers, having expanded from Johannesburg to Pretoria, Cape Town and Umhlanga near Durban.

More Panamera model choices

Porsche chose to show more model choices for Panamera in America.  At the Los Angeles Auto Show 2016, the company showcased it is to add rear-wheel-drive, non-S / non-turbo models, and the longer wheelbase Executive (the latter to be covered in a dedicated article).

As the models announced initially were 4S and turbo, the phase of adding more engines and drivetrains are occuring now.

Panamera

The Panamera line-up will start with the Panamera.  As it, ambiguously, has no specific model name, this is also known as Panamera V6 or Panamera base.  Rather than the previous Panamera 3.6 V6, the new Panamera gets a 3.0 V6 turbo, so all new-generation Panamera engines will use turbocharging.

Rather than use the same new-gen 2.9 with 324kW / 550Nm from the 4S, the Panamera uses a 3.0 V6 turbo engine which puts out 243kW and 450Nm.  Would it not have been easier/cheaper to simply use the new engine and downtune it?  Porsche has its reasons.  This engine is tuned for more efficiency, at a 7.5 l/100km combined-cycle usage, claimed.

It is still enough to send the new Panamera base from 0 to 100 km/h in 5.7 seconds, or 5.5 with the optional Sports Chrono package.  A top speed of 264 km/h for an “entry-level” model is not slow.

This car gets the new 8-speed PDK automatic-dual-clutch gearbox, and drive is to the rear axle.

Panamera 4

The Panamera 4 is Panamera, ditto, with the 4 in its model name indicating the difference that it uses the 4-wheel-drive, with associated traction benefits.  It slices 0.2 seconds off the corresponding sprint to 100 times of the Panamera V6, above.  Fuel is said to be 0.2 l/100 km more than the rear-driven car above.

Panamera 4S

The 4 means 4-wheel-driven, and the S on this car shows that the aforementioned 2.9 T V6 324 kW engine performance is installed.  Performance?  0-100 4.4 (or optional with Sports Chrono package, 4.2 seconds) while top speed is 289 km/h.

Panamera 4 e-hybrid

The one with the lime-green details on the badge backgrounds and items like brake calipers.  It is the plug-in hybrid electric model, and this time the Porsche hybrid is 4-wheel-drive, hence 4 e-hybrid.  A quick hybrid, too – how does 4.6 sec 0-100 and 278 km/h maximum sound for a hybrid?

Using electricity to drive rather than the engine all the time, the Panamera 4 e-hybrid is said to be able to need only 2.5 l/100 km of petrol during general driving.

Panamera turbo

Now we get into the flagship of the Panamera range, sporting a 4.0 404kW V8 turbo, and 770Nm from 1960-4500 revs.  These amounts amount to acceleration measured at 3.8 seconds for the 0-100, matching the previous turbo S, while ordering the Sports Chrono package will see it beat even that, cut to 3.6 seconds.  An Autobahn-impressive 306 km/h is possible, making the Panamera turbo one of the fastest 4-door cars on the planet.

4S and turbo land first

The Panamera 4S and Panamera turbo are indicated to arrive first.  This means a pair of 4-wheel-driven Panamera variants land:  4S with all-new 2.9-litre V6 turbo engine, and the “turbo” model with also all-new 4.0 V8 turbo.

At this level of luxury and performance in a sedan-like form (the Panamera is a fastback, going up to the more conventional 3-box sedan shapes of rivals) the new Panamera range goes up against cars like the Maserati Ghibli, Mercedes-Benz/-AMG S-Class, BMW 7 Series, Jaguar XJ and XJR, and Audi A8 or S8.

What will the new Porsche Panamera be priced at in SA?

Prices, including taxes, with the 3-year maintenance plan (add R50k to add 2 years) are:

Porsche Panamera (V6, base)	R 1 340 000
Porsche Panamera 4	R 1 369 000
Porsche Panamera 4S	R 1 564 000
Porsche Panamera 4 e-hybrid	TBA (To Be Announced)
Porsche Panamera turbo	R 2 441 000