New Porsche Panamera reveal this month

PORSCHE will lift the covers off its second-generation Panamera large luxury sedan at an event in Berlin on June 28, revealing whether the German sportscar-maker has stuck with the model’s unorthodox styling or bumped the hump in favour of a less polarising profile.

As previously reported, GoAuto understands that, for the new version, Porsche has chamfered the Panamera’s humpback, which boosted headroom for second-row passengers but divided opinion on its aesthetic affect.

Speaking at the launch of the new Boxster sportscar last week, Porsche Cars Australia public relations manager Paul Ellis confirmed to GoAuto that the new Panamera would be uncovered later this month before heading Down Under in 2017.

“The global reveal for that car will be on June 28 and that will be a static reveal in Berlin – and we probably will see the car in the first quarter of 2017 in Australia,” he said.

The Panamera was never intended to generate significant sales volume for the company locally or overseas, and in Australia is responsible for just a handful of registrations each month 34 have been sold to the end of May this year.

However, Mr Ellis said the model was still a worthy part of the Porsche line-up.

“That market segment where the Panamera competes since its introduction in 2009, that segment really hasn’t grown, but it’s an important segment for us because that shows what we can do with a four-door concept,” he said.

“It’s an important car for us because it shows what we can do and that we don’t just sell two-door sportscars.”

Some reports have suggested the next Panamera could surface as the production version of the fully electric Mission E sedan concept, but as that model is not due until the end of the decade, it is now clear that the brace of four-door passenger cars will coexist.

The show-stopping Mission E was unveiled at the Frankfurt motor show last year and was confirmed for production in December, but Mr Ellis said that, whatever form the production car takes, it will not be Porsche’s next supercar.

“I think a supercar will always have a combustion engine of some sort,” he said.

“The Mission E is a statement that we can deliver against the brand values of Porsche with an electric car, but that won’t be by definition what our supercar is. Supercars for us will be hybrid technology.

“You will have electric propulsion and you will have electric motors, but you will also have that in conjunction with a combustion engine.”

With hybrid power, the next Porsche performance halo will follow in the technological footsteps of the 918, which used a combination of turbocharged V8 and electric motor to produce a whopping 653kW and 800Nm.

In addition to the vicious two-seater, the Porsche hybrid line-up extends to a petrol-electric Panamera and Cayenne large SUV.

Mr Ellis said that as the technology was working well in its current evolution, the company was sticking with the dual-motor systems for now.

“Where we are at now, as an industry, is a nice sweet spot,” he said. “The compromises are really nice and acceptable and we get really good cars.”