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Porsche Panamera cold weather testing

By Tim Pollard

19 February 2007 08:59

Porsche Panamera: a four-seater GT

CAR Online has snared the best spy photos yet of Porsche's new four-seater, the Panamera. Think of it as a four-door version of the 928 - a four-seater GT to bridge the gap between the hard-core 911 sports car range and the Cayenne 4x4. We won't see the Panamera in showrooms before 2009, with prices stretching from £54,000-£84,000. Read on for the full lowdown on the most exciting sports saloon to reach the market in years.

A Porsche saloon, you say? So is it a stretched 911?

Nope. The Panamera uses a variety of different components plucked from across Porsche's product portfolio. You need the strongest suspension and brakes going? Sure, borrow them from the Cayenne SUV. You need a lightweight, sports car chassis? Here, use parts of the 911 Turbo platform. It'll be front-engined and rear-drive, at first at any rate; there's some talk of a four-wheel drive version in the pipeline. Porsche hopes to build 20,000 a year at first, but that figure sounds a bit conservative to us.