2024 Porsche Panamera

If, like us, you’re old enough to remember when Porsche only made sports cars, you’ll find it hard to believe that this Panamera sedan is now in its third generation. Now, over the years it certainly has gotten more luxurious and more innovative, but does it still have the soul of a Porsche? Well, let’s find out.

The Porsche Panamera has been delivering Porsche levels of driving excitement and European luxury car levels of pampering since it first appeared here for 2010. For 2024, a third generation arrives cranking up just about everything that makes the Panamera… a Panamera.

The 911 influence remains strong in the overall design, and exterior dimensions stay almost exactly the same, but the Panamera’s face does now appear a little less rounded. Both the size and location of front air inlets have increased, expanding grillwork to the corners, further accentuating the Panamera’s already substantial width. Down the sides, the windows sit flusher with the bodywork and the rear hips are a little less pronounced. While in back, beneath the active rear spoiler, the fascia adds a lot more sculpting and the full-width taillights blend in much better than before. All making for easily the best-looking Panamera yet.

Good news for people who like to haul lots of things with their high-performance luxury car, Porsche keeps the hatchback flexibility intact. Which means a wide opening for accessing the 17.4 cubic-feet of space. 40/20/40 folding seatbacks and a nice flat load floor allow for a max of 46.9 cubic-feet.

Up front, are some great-feeling leather covered sport seats, and a new Porsche Driver Experience which includes a wide in-dash infotainment touchscreen and separate fully digital gauge display for the driver. The shifter toggle is also on the dash, sitting just to the right of the steering wheel, with the circular Drive Mode selector actually on the wheel. All controls have a very solid feel to them, and that even includes the touch sensitive ones on the rising center console that somehow work better here than in most other vehicles. Porsche even now has “vent by wire” with the ability to control airflow direction on the touchscreen, and for an additional “wow” factor, front passengers can get their own touchscreen. The rear seat experience is just as special; optional high-back bucket seats with lots of adjustments, and center console touchscreen control.

Starting off the ’24 model year, just the standard rear-drive V6 Panamera and this all-wheel-drive Panamera 4 are available. Both feature a 2.9-liter V6 twin-turbo engine producing 348 horsepower and 368 lb-ft of torque, and an eight-speed PDK automatic. But a wider variety of flavors when it comes to powertrain performance will quickly arrive, all the way up to a 771-horsepower Turbo S E-Hybrid. This Panamera 4’s numbers may sound pretty humble for a big sedan with a Porsche badge on the hood, but throw in the Sport Chrono package and it was a wild ride at Mason Dixon Dragway.

As per usual, PDK launch control performed absolutely perfect every single time, as we knocked out consistent 4.2-second trips to 60. Smooth, quiet, and luxurious for the entire quarter-mile trip of 12.7 seconds, finishing at 107 mph. In the handling course, steering had a hefty and slightly unpredictable feel to it, but delivered the kind of precision that only Porsche seems to be able to deliver. Porsche’s available Active Ride suspension that will be on E-Hybrid models not only counteracts body roll, but actively leans the car into corners like a motorcycle rider; but even without it, this Panamera 4 felt incredibly well-balanced with minimal body roll. Braking performance was fully Porsche-spec, stopping in a scant 98 feet from 60 mph.

Even with all of that performance, the Panamera remains a very comfortable car to just drive, and eats up highway miles as well as it carves corners. Government Fuel Economy Ratings for the 4 are 18 City, 25 Highway, and 21 Combined. We managed to hyper-mile our way to 27.1 mpg of Premium. Just slightly worse than average for the Energy Impact Score, using 14.2 barrels of oil yearly, with 7.0 tons of CO2 emissions.

Pricing starts at $101,550, with the Panamera 4 coming in at $108,550. It may have four doors, and a hatch, and more tech beneath the surface than just about anything we’ve blasted into outer space, but when it comes to the driving experience, there is only one way to sum up the 2024 Porsche Panamera. It’s pure Porsche.