Car Throttle

Porsche's moves that have antagonized brand purists are well-chronicled; the Cayenne and Panamera both have not been well-received by those enthusiasts. To us, the Panamera is definitely more of a Porsche than the Cayenne is. Regardless, the market has taken eagerly to both models, powering Porsche to new sales and profit heights. People like their four-hour Porsches! The car was born out of Porsche's realization that BMW and Mercedes-Benzes were parked next to their owners Cayennes in the driveway, leaving a huge untapped potential for the company. With that type of clientele, you wouldn't expect manual transmissions to be the most popular option. And they aren't - the take rate is so low in fact that Car and Driver reports the next-generation car will be losing

I do like the Porsche Panamera. It may look like a very large toad and if you parked it beside an Aston Martin Rapide, a Maserati Quattroporte or a Mercedes Benz CLS you would find that it is actually very ugly in that sort of company. But that hasn’t stopped Porsche from selling a whole lot of them. The reason for this is presence. It has bus-loads of road presence and if one suddenly pulled up right behind you, you’d be slightly intimidated and move over in an instant. Unless you’re in something as equally rapid, that is. And with that little thought out of the way I’d like to introduce the new Porsche Panamera Diesel. The oil burning Panamera Diesel is obviously catered to those

2009 wasn't exactly a good year for the automotive industry. Economic turmoil resulted in sales declines across the board, and the results were pretty painful at luxury automakers as well. Not exactly the best time to be launching an important, all-new luxury sedan. But that is the environment the Panamera launched in. Like its predecessor the Cayenne, it defied the wishes of purists - but still managed to do succeed. Since going on sale last year, 22,518 Panameras have been sold globally. No doubt that is an impressive figure, especially given the state of the global economy. Luxury sales are just starting to rebound now, which means it is likely the Panamera will post even higher figures in its second year of sales. It will be further aided

Polarizing designs and groundbreaking new introductions often result in very strong reactions. If there was ever a car that generated strong reactions, the Porsche Panamera would have to be one of the those cars. Firstly, it drew opposition from purists, who were still bent out of shape over the Cayenne. As for us, we would definitely say the Panamera fits the Porsche mission a whole lot more closely than the Cayenne. Secondly, its styling wasn't exactly given widespread praise (including here on CarThrottle). We think the design comes across a whole lot better in person - apparently, the public agrees. It appeared from first indications that the Panamera would be a big success, and that has happened on a pretty big scale for Porsche. The car went into production

Here at CarThrottle, we are big fans of the Porsche 928 - and indeed most all Porsches. The new Panamera four-door brings a suitable front-engined, rear-wheel drive platform to the table yet again. Why not use that platform to build a exciting new 928 GT, increasing economies of scale and profit margins at the same time? Give the fans something to be happy about as a result of the Panamera platform. Many reports have swirled about just that, and today a design has appeared online. Its just a sketch, and not necessarily a 928. But it looks like one.  You can tell we are desperate here! This design was spotted on Porsche Design Consulting's website, and it looks pretty good to us. Porsche had to know we

One morning after breakfast I was browsing through YouTube and I watched Lady Gaga perform at the Brit Awards 2009. She was wearing one of those jackets on top of something that looks like a one-piece swimsuit or leotard. I then started browsing photos of her and I realized something. The realization was that having too much money has enabled people to suddenly lose all sense of style and taste. Take a look at Lady Gaga before she became the Gaga of everyone worldwide (pic above). She wore normal looking clothes with less shoulder padding than people in the 1980s, unlike her style today, and she also wore pants or skirts and looked pretty much like a normal human being to me. Then she wrote some

Often designs that are hated by a small section of the automotive community will go on to be big successes. This has happened with Porsche and the Cayenne. It looks like history is about to repeat itself with the Panamera, Porsche's first four-door. It has recently gone on sale in the United States and it is already making waves - as the brand's top seller. The Cayenne has been Porsche's top seller in our market for some time. The new Panamera has replaced it at the top for the month of April, selling 678 vehicles, an impressive tally that blows away all other Porsche models. Will this trend continue? It will be interesting to see. Porsche, along with other manufacturers, is getting ready for the 2011 model year.

Patent filings are proving to be a good source of information today, with a General Motors filing potentially showing the look of the next-generation Malibu and now a Porsche filing that points to a Panamera Convertible. Last year, we reported that a convertible version of the Panamera was coming, as a way for Porsche to reduce costs for the platform due to economies of scale. However, also in that report it said the Panamera Convertible would be a two-door. Which is why we (and everyone else) were surprised to see a four-door in new images from Autocar that look like authentic filings with the patent office. It is something that no one else is really doing at the moment, offering Porsche a chance to stand out

One of the most persistent rumors lately has been the introduction of a new Porsche 928. When the original car came out it was thought that one day it could replace the venerable 911. Obviously, that didn't work out quite like Porsche anticipated. Porsche has expanded quite a bit since then, introducing the Panamera, whose platform would make the perfect basis for a front-engined 928 GT. It could serve as Porsche's fifth model for what would likely be a low development cost, not to mention increasing economies of scale for the Panamera. But, what would it look like? Member Wild-Speed on the Teamspeed forums thinks he has an idea. Basically, it looks like a Panamera turned into a GT, and the result comes out looking not too

We look forward to the videos released by manufacturers for the action that most of them have. Or at least, seeing something that hasn't come out before. The Porsche Panamera V-6 is new, so Porsche released a video of it. Got to hand it to them - besides a walk around (like Audi and Infiniti), this has to be one of the most boring Porsche videos ever. They're driving yes, but you can't hear anything. That's half the fun! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QjeHEFhDLw