clembo

Yes, it is not a great looking car, but does drive well, and it will fit in a driveway.

Maybe Porsche will build the next version a little bigger, like the massive 991

ljpviper

Ugly is an understatement. I saw a brown one yesterday it looks like a dark colored egg. I still cannot get use to it, it's just wrong.

Later that day saw a mint 928S4, what a looker still. Sorry if was in the market four a 4 sweater give me an M-5 any day.

carcommander

It and the Ferrari FF are two of the best driving while being ugly, cars on the planet. A shame really.

Overdraft

Watch for the 2014 mid cycle refresh to add a crease mid drift rear end - then 991 tail lights - to correct what most would agree to be well...not pretty...although I will agree with a couple of posters in that when I see one live wheeling through town, they look much much better than photos and at the dealership. The shooting brake has been such a hit - won't fall upon deaf ears in the design department. I was 75% on the Panamera - with the butt end corrected...might be in my laneway.

DBYT

Have to agree with the OP and most here. The front looks good but that rear end looks worse than the front of a 996! A lot worse! I actually like the looks of the shooting brake that they are about to release...looks so much sleeker.

The Panamera looks like a 911 that has been on a 10 year junk food binge.

jmm

To me, and to many I've talked to, it is by far the best looking sedan on the road today. It looks better than all the cookie-cutter conventional sedans out there. You know it's a Panamera from several blocks away and it looks like something important is going down the road.

It is as distinctive a shape as the 911.

chuckbdc

Ok, here is my bottom line. Any Panamera has a great personality. S models with the spoiler deployed and the GTS sitting down on the suspension with 20 in wheels pushed out to their limits in the wheel wells are, to be broad minded, not in a sexist way, good looking enough. If someone wants to put one under my tree, no bow is needed.

rpilot

Well, maybe I need to choose my words more wisely and not call it grotesquely ugly. And I should have been clearer. As most others have pointed out, the problem begins behind the B pillar. It is the cutout of the rear glass and the hump on top where the rear window begins. It should have been either more swoopy (at expense of rear seat headroom) or better just avoid the swoopiness and create a straight hatch.

They have attempted to correct this with the so called shooting brake. I have never liked "shooting brakes" from the likes of MB, but this really looks like a wagon rather than a shooting brake, so I have no issues with the style. The shooting brake style does make it more of a wagon rather the hatchback/notchback style the panamera should have been in the first place. It seems rather large for a wagon, but I will have to see the Shooting brake in person when available to make a judgement. (and yes Chuck911, the car will grow even bigger as you look at it)

Also, the ugly comparison is mainly relative to the rest of the Porsche lineup, all of which are great looking or at least not unattractive in any way to look at, IMO. It's like a bevy of beautiful sisters living next door, one of which has a tumorous hunchback (thank you Gary for putting that word in my Panamera vocabulary !) , even though her face is beautiful to look at. Of course I am not comparing it to the Acura family where all the sisters look like eunuchs or the MB family where they are putting on more and more jewellery and hooker eyelashes to look attractive as they are getting uglier.

Personally, as nice as the interior of the car is, and I am sure it is a "Porsche" in the driving experience (although I have not driven it), I would probably look to Audi if I was in the market for a luxury 4 door.

Galion

IMO it looks fantastic, If I were after a sport sedan, I would take a Panamera hands down.

daddyscar

I don't like the design but they sell plenty of them. To many it's a cool new Porsche sedan. I had one as a loaner for half a day and had two compliments from strangers. To me it's the hump that kills it.

I like the Sport Tourismo. Michael Mauer is the Porsche design chief responsible for the 918, 991, new boxster and cayman. Here's a short article explaining he got in his position too late to fix the Panamera. http://www.automobilemag.com/feature...rsche_boxster/

chuckbdc

Pilot- Go sit in a Panamera GTS. I find that it beats any in the Audi line for fit, finish, and especially ergonomics. Many Alcanteras gave their lives for those seats.

Audi's control system is "unique" in a "how in the world do I" and "how could they have" way. On the positive side, when you go to adjust the seat on the over-optioned A-8 loaner they (may) give you the first time you 991 is in for service, the unexpected massage up and down your back is not annoying. More fiddling just produces different massages; actual driving may not be necessary. But in the end, that is as unnecessary as heated and vented seats and and a heated steering wheel.

chuckbdc

Look- its one of those huge Caymans!

HotLap

Recently rode in a friends new, loaded Panamera and it was very quiet, and especially SOLID feeling compared to my 991. If I was looking for a 4 door sports sedan I'd definitely consider the Panamera on the top of that list...it's a true sports sedan, not a four door sedan with a sport package (hope that makes sense)?

TT Surgeon

I got one for my wife, she absolutely loves it, coming off a cayenne which she hated.

HotLap

TT curious, what about the Cayenne didn't she like...just the "crossover" concept in general? I ask because I'm in the market for a CAyenne and am close to pulling the trigger on a new 2013 S model.