turbox4

Everybody has their on opinion that's good but here is mine. rainy weekend went to the local Porsche Dealer to look at the Panamera in the show room, was thinking about replacing a CLK. Great looking car, but when I sat in the Panamera, I felt the view over the hood was not good, brought back memories of the sixties muscle cars with hood scoops, for me it was a complete turn off. I guess having and use to the the great views of the 911 and Cayenne I was expecting the same. wife and son felt the same way, yes the seat was as high as it would go . we are all in the 5'6" to 5'10"range. When I asked the sales rep to sit in ,he was 6foot, and see he could see an object about ten feet in front of the front bumper, he couldn't see it either. Maybe Porsche will take the bulge out of hood one day.

hansw

Don't hold your breath. Under relatively new European Union regulations for pedestrian safety -- in existence some 2-3 years -- the distance between the hood any hard points in the engine compartment must not be less than a specified value, about 2 inches, I think. This has forced all car makers wanting to sell cars into the EU market to raise hoods. Just look at new BMWs and Mercedes models, they all have bulbous noses. I think Porsche has done a better job than most to comply with this latest interference in car design by government.

A very few car manufacturers -- Jaguar comes to mind -- have taken a more sophisticated and expensive approach to compliance; they keep a low hood, but have explosive devices at the back end of the hood which very quickly raise the hood in case of pedestrian impact. Sensors in the front of the car indicate the imminent impact of a pedestrian.

I'm not making this up.