The Porsche Panamera is the sports car automaker’s first major foray into the sedan market in modern history and the very idea has enthusiasts worldwide nervous.
Well, parent company Volkswagen is now getting to the act. Tech news blog reports that a factory owned by the automaker will be supplying the painted body shells for the Panamera. It is located in Hannover, Germany.
The Panamera, though, will ultimately be scheduled to go in large scale production at Porsche’s Leipzig plant. It will invest about $26 million to upgrade the facility.
The Porsche Panamera goes on sale sometime in 2009. Our take? Unlike our fellow journalists, we’re keeping our mouths shut until we’ve had a chance to actually test-drive the Panamera. Sketches are one thing; the reality could easily be quite another.
Although other automotive journalists may be jumping the gun about forming opinions about the controversial new sport sedan, at least they get their FACTS right. Above, this ‘journalist’ describes Volkswagen as Porsche’s “parent company” which has never been case – a fact that an author of an auto-blog SHOULD be acquainted with. Although Porsche and VW have been involved in many joint engineering projects, VW has never owned stake in Porsche. Furthermore, Porsche has recently increased their ownership of VW stock (almost to a 1/3 if I recall correctly), so if anyone is a parent company, it would be Porsche to VW.
This is a perfect example of a very misinformed journalist thinking he is much better then his competition (“Unlike our fellow journalists…”).
What utter garbage.
The Cayenne was “unconventional” for a Porsche when it came out. Likewise, the Panamera is breaking the traditional Porsche mold. But after the Cayenne, anything is possible.