LEIPZIG, Germany — The third-generation Porsche Panamera will exclusively be offered as a sedan when it goes on sale for 2025. The long-roof Sport Turismo version added to the range for the 2018 model year isn’t coming back, and Autoblog sat down with a top Porsche executive to find out why.
“When it comes to the customer’s point of view, [the Sport Turismo variant] is a little bit of a design piece. The practicality of the car doesn’t change much compared to [the standard Panamera] because we have the huge hatch. The sedan’s hatch is big, and the Sport Turismo’s is more or less the same,” replied Dr. Thomas Friemuth, the Panamera line’s vice president, when I asked why the wagon isn’t coming back.
It takes little more than a quick glance at a specifications sheet to understand what he’s alluding to. In the outgoing Panamera sedan, you’ve got 17.6 cubic feet of trunk space with both rows of seats left up and 47.3 cubes with the rear seats folded flat. In the Panamera Sport Turismo, those figures increase to 18.3 and 49, respectively. The difference between the sedan and the wagon is smaller than many assume.
This either created or compounded a bigger problem: sales. Friemuth added that the Sport Turismo represents “below 10%” of total Panamera sales around the world. “That’s why we decided with the markets not to make the Sport Turismo again,” he concluded.
Porsche doesn’t specifically break down Panamera sales by body style, but Friemuth’s comments suggest the Sport Turismo will enter the pantheon of automotive history as one of the brand’s rarer series-produced models from its era. Panamera sales totaled 34,142 units around the world in 2022, a 13% increase compared to 2021. If the Sport Turismo represented less than 10% of sales, Porsche sold under 3,414 units last year.
For context, the 718 Boxster and 718 Cayman duo posted 18,203 sales globally. At the other end of the spectrum, the Cayenne took the top spot in the range with 95,604 sales in 2022, and sales of the 911 increased by 5% to 40,410 units (including 10,042 delivered in our market).
If you’re in the market for a new Panamera Sport Turismo, get one soon before inventory runs out. If you’ve got one, hang on to it.
Source: www.autoblog.com