#panamera

In my off-site review of the Porsche Panamera Turbo, I wrote

After years of reminding auto enthusiasts that pure power and performance numbers don’t make for a perfect car, Porsche has gone ahead and proved the point themselves.

So. Take a sedan which is primarily notable for its racetrack performance… and remove that performance. What do you have? You have the Porsche Panamera V6.

The best stories are those where you can barely wait to find out more. There are new heroes, new ideas and new sources of suspense… actually, all typically Porsche

So goes the opening to this video, introducing the new base-model V6 Panameras. Though some might argue that Volkswagen-sourced V6 engines are not in fact “typically Porsche” (an argument that carried more weight before the Cayenne came to town), a 300 horsepower engine in a 3,814 lb, four-door Porsche does technically qualify as a “source of suspense.” And attempting to charge $75k for a base Panamera V6 certainly requires a perspective that might be charitably described as “heroic.” On the other hand, it’s hard to get too down on this poor thing. You can’t blame a lazy dog for a veterinarian’s (or in this case, a CAFE standard’s) work. Besides, it’s still not as embarrassingly neutered as the Cayenne V6.