The motor industry has the same reputation for safeguarding the purity of the English language as footballers and teens. We’ve had hot hatches, people carriers and superminis, but the term ‘four-door coupé’ takes English emasculation to new depths. Coupés have long been two-door cars, usually with two seats. A car with four doors and four seats is a saloon, never mind how rakish the roof or how sporty the driving demeanour. As debatable as the semantics is precisely who invented this new but growing car genre.
Porsche, which has never done a four-door car before, if we exclude the Cayenne SUV, claims the plaudits. The new four-door Panamera, on the drawing board for a decade, has been one of the industry’s worst kept secrets. Little Aston Martin, another four-door virgin, also lays a claim. Its Rapide — a saloon version of the DB9 — debuted three years before the Panamera, never mind that sales won’t start until next year. And Maserati will point out that its five-year old Quattroporte, as the name implies, is very much a four-door, and that the Maserati badge ensures that, first and foremost, it is a sports car. The tuneful V8 engine, after all, comes from Ferrari.
Finally,
Mercedes-Benz will hold up its hand. It was first to use the ‘four-door coupé’ marketing moniker, when it launched its CLS — an E-class saloon rakishly restyled — back in 2004. Mercedes created a car with the sleek lines and sporty persona of a sports car, mingled with the practicality of four doors and four seats, and the recipe worked. That the best-selling version features a not-very-fast diesel engine seems to bother no one.
No matter who invented the sector, there’s no doubting its popularity. Europe’s biggest car maker Volkswagen has already joined in (the Passat CC), and BMW, Lamborghini and others have signalled their intentions with a range of enticing concept cars.
Yet, of all the new four-door coupés, the Panamera has created most interest, and little wonder given Porsche’s sports car pedigree. Its 911 is the world’s most famous two-door car; its shape is also the most iconic. This rounded rakish style was the starting point for the Panamera, just as it was — with mixed success — for the 4x4 Cayenne.
The Panamera is aimed at non-Porsche owners (80 per cent will be new to the brand) who fancy some lively Porsche DNA in car that has enough room for friends and family. Here is a spacious and comfortable four- door, yet one that goes almost as fast, and accelerates almost as briskly, as the quicker 911s. Owners of big sports saloons are those most likely to be tempted. Once enticed, they will discover a car of enormous high-speed ground-covering ability, impeccably predictable handling and yet with that same cosy low-slung driving position of a proper sports car.
There’s a choice of turbo or non-turbo V8 engines, four-wheel drive or rear-drive, and various trim levels and options that amplify the sporty side, or luxury saloon side, as desired.
In keeping with the linguistically challenged car industry, even the name is an unfortunate contraction — in this case, of the Carrera Panamericana road race of the 1950s. Porsche never won it, but this Mexican event supplied the core of the name for this new four-door and also for Porsche’s best known car: the 911 Carrera.
Gavin Green is a motoring journalist and consultant
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