Porsche has always placed a strong emphasis on design when it comes to their vehicles. Some may disagree and say that Porsche designers clearly were trying their hardest to not stray from the look of its predecessor, but that assertion is facile and ill-informed.
With the second-generation Panamera, the Zuffenhausen-based manufacturer had the hard task of improving upon the dynamics while crafting a more universally appealing exterior that, somehow, does not stray much from the unique but polarising first-generation car.
Indeed, lot of the new Panamera’s design was informed by its predecessor. And there are certain trade-offs a manufacturer has to make in order to comfortably fit four passengers while offering the low centre of gravity and body control befitting of a Porsche. Hence, a shape that some might have considered ungainly after seeing the Panamera for the first time in 2009.
But with the second go-round, Porsche presented a brief to their crack squad of vehicle designers to accentuate the sports car element of the Panamera and, as a result, the new car is the lowest and widest car in its class. As you can see in the video above, there is an immense amount of care and consideration when it comes to a new Porsche’s design, a philosophy informed more from function than form.
Dynamically, too, that new approach seems to have paid off as the 2017 Panamera is touted to be the fastest four-door saloon to lap the Nurburgring.
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