For most of us the idea of a wagon brings in the pictures of those 1970s large land tanks that could carry the entire family and an enormous amount of cargo as well. Over the years the wagon has been pushed aside by first minivans and more recently SUVs, but it seems like the wagon is making a comeback. For higher end brands the wagon style is typically called a shooting brake, but it’s a wagon nonetheless. One company that’s working to make their wagon/shooting brake exciting for you is Porsche with its Panamera Sport Turismo which will eventually be heading to the US.
We will see this car in all its glory at the Geneva Motor Show and it will launch in Europe in October, but this car could be in the US market as early as November. There will be five different versions of the Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo shown at the Geneva Motor Show. These five are the Panamera 4, Panamera 4S, Panamera 4S Diesel, Panamera 4 E-Hybrid and Panamera Turbo. These five will give us a great idea of what this car will bring to the market although we may not see the diesel arrive at our shores.
The look of this new car shows off with an extended roof that finishes at an adaptive spoiler on top of the vehicle’s rear hatch area. There are three angles that can be used for the spoiler depending upon the driving conditions which gives you the idea this car is still expected to head to the track, even though it’s a wagon. At speeds up to 105 mph the spoiler remains retracted but faster than that and the spoiler moves into a performance position to help push the rear end of this car downward and increase the stability and agility of the car.
If you’re using the Sport or Sport Plus modes this spoiler automatically moves to the performance position when you reach 56 mph. In these driving modes the car assumes you’re going to keep on pushing the performance and adapts for the upcoming drive.
This is the first Panamera model to offer three rear seats with a 2+1 configuration. The two outboard seats in the rear are individually electronically adjustable giving you a full 40/20/40 setup that you can take advantage of and enjoy on the drive in this amazing new wagon. In addition to making it more comfortable for rear passengers this is Porsche with the cargo area considerations you want. All three seats can be folded down and increase the capacity of this car to what you need.
The segment of the Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo isn’t a large one as of yet, but there are more and more top level luxury and sport brands that are creating their own version of a wagon/shooting brake. Not all are made to be performance driven, but you have to expect a high level of performance when you put the name of Porsche on the vehicle.
We’ll get to learn much more about this amazing new sports wagon when the Geneva Motor Show arrives and we’re shown all the vehicles offered as part of this quintuplet of vehicles. This car will certainly take the show and with this preview we can look forward to what we’ll see in Geneva next month. Which one of the five will be your favorite? There are so many variations to choose from it might be hard to pick, but when you see these cars on display you’ll realize there is company that knows how to make a wagon cool and that company is Porsche.