The next Porsche Panamera will pack some significant visual tweaks atop a familiar architecture
A new Porsche Panamera has been spied during its development in the arctic circle flaunting some fresh design elements inspired by the 911 and Taycan. The Panamera was given a subtle update only last year, but due its, this new model will retain its basic underpinnings rather than undergo a complete overhaul, combining existing elements with new ones, many of which are on display on this prototype.
So, what’s new and what’s carried over? While we might still see more changes to come on the final production variants, these prototypes clearly share the same door skins, glasshouse (sans the rear quarter glass that we’ll come back to) and roof panel with the current Panamera, signalling that its fundamental proportions and construction will be carried over.
From here though, these prototypes differ quite markedly from the existing model, with a new body side pressing on the rear quarter instantly visible thanks to the completely reshaped rear lights that maintain the typical Porsche light bar but now sit in a Taycan-like void, rather than on the surface as in the current model. The rear quarter light is also covered, suggesting that Porsche has also used the opportunity of the new side pressing to give the small window a new profile – although its relation to the existing rear door glass will likely make the changes subtle.
The nose has also undergone some pretty substantial changes, driven by a new more angular headlight design. To suit, both the front wings and bumper (which in the case of the Panamera totally encase the headlights) are reprofiled, perhaps with more defined creases in keeping with the sharper headlights. The front bumper itself features huge new intakes, with intercoolers and charge coolers on full display behind the extremely thin horizontal vanes.
Porsche’s engineers also look to have used this opportunity to place the front-mounted radars and driver assist hardware at the centre of the bumper, rather than the outer intakes as in the current model, all of which will likely facilitate a higher level of autonomous driving functionality to keep it future proof as the technology progresses.
For now, these are the only changes we can definitively see, but we also expect the cabin and powertrains to have their own updates alongside the wider reboot. Without traditional model cycles to use as reference, we don’t know exactly when the new Panamera will be due on sale, or what variants we might see moving forward, but with a now-or-never time frame now in place for model lines like this, we expect to see plenty of high value high performance models join the range.
Keyword: New Porsche Panamera spied with range of aesthetic tweaks