Free Reads

Back to Library >
ti icon

Free Reads

Man Maths: Porsche Panamera 4S Diesel

1 week ago

not bookmarked

Writer:

Andrew Frankel | Ti co-founder

Date:

28 September 2024

When I joined Autocar in the summer of 1988, the king of the diesels was the promisingly entitled Citroën CX DTR Turbo 2. Compared to anything else we’d tested powered by the same fuel, it was a rocket ship, the oil-burning Bugatti Tourbillon of its day.

And if you got it off the line just right, ignored the smell of burning clutch and timed your gearshift to perfection it would not quite manage to get to 60mph in 10 seconds. More normal 0-60mph times for diesels of the day were 17.5sec (Ford Granada), 15.8sec (Mercedes-Benz 190D) and 18.2sec (Volkswagen Golf). Diesel cars were not just noisy and filthy, they were so slow you’d consider chewing your arm off just to liven up the journey a little. I know, I remember driving them.

But then they got better. Quite a lot better. I can remember my first drive in a left-hook E36 BMW 325tds and literally getting out and putting an ear to the bonnet just to check it was still running on the oily stuff. Until one day a diesel got good enough to go in a Porsche, but by then expectations had risen and I thought the V6 diesel Macans and Cayennes little better than so-so. So what did Porsche do? It made the Panamera and Cayenne available with a diesel V8 too, as kindly supplied by group stablemate Audi.

For ultimate practicality, choose the Sport Turismo

Now spool forward to an unspecified date in 2017 where you’ll find me sitting in a suitably equipped Panamera 4S Diesel with, unusually, feet hard down on both pedals. This is because I’m sitting at the bottom of the Bruntingthorpe runway trying to trigger the launch control. This duly done, I simply lift the left leg, sit back and watch the car do the rest.

Back at base the data revealed this bog standard four-door diesel saloon had hit 60mph from rest in 3.6sec, 100mph in a barely believable 9.3sec and peaked at 165mph not because we were in any danger of running out runway but simply because I’d got bored just sitting there. That 0-100mph time was quicker than its contemporary second-gen 991 Carrera S. The car was graveyard quiet, rode beautifully, did over 40mpg and, with a 20-gallon tank, would put 800 miles between fills.

So Porsche killed it. At the time the official line went on about changing environments and diesel not being quite the right form of power source for a Porsche, but I was far more convinced by the rather less official line which claimed that in the wake of the still breaking Dieselgate scandal, Porsche wanted to put as much distance between itself and anything supplied by the Group with diesel in its veins as possible. It was on sale in the UK for just 14 months. But what a car! Quite the best Panamera I’ve driven, before or since.

In a way it’s not really the right kind of car for Man Maths, subjects of which should usually have something heroically inadvisable about them, and it absolutely does not, but it’s such an outlier, rarity (just over 200 sold in the UK) and such a fine, continent-busting luxury express, I hope I am allowed this one indulgence.

Besides, with prices starting around £30,000 for leggy examples and stopping just shy of £50,000 for cars with fewer than 25,000 miles on the clock, I think they’re a bit of a steal too.

Free Reads on The Intercooler are freely available for all to read. The vast majority of our stories, including all of our feature articles, sit behind the paywall, only available to subscribers who get unlimited access to our ever-growing library of more than a thousand stories and close to two million words. 

Click here to start your 30-day free trial and gain full access to The Intercooler’s multi award-winning website and app.