Motoring journalists are not popular among their journalistic colleagues. Quite recently, the bouffant haired Caxton Professor of Journalism and Media Studies, Anton Harber, opined in the Business Day that he had severe doubts about their morality. And back in 2006 one Robert Brand who, after a lackluster career as a journalist, now lectures in ethics at Rhodes University, wrote this

"The Frankfurt Motor Show took place in September, and as usual a crowd of South African motoring "journalists" attended the event as guests of various car manufacturers. On their return, news about new models is splashed across the pages of our newspapers. Patrick Gearing gushes over a full page of Business Day about the pleasures of driving the new Porsche Boxster and David Bullard titillates us in the Sunday Times with his description of the array of exotic models on show.
Yet neither tells us who paid their bills. Whose guests were they? What motivates their reporting? Gearing doesn’t explain why he singled out the Porsche, and Bullard gives no clue as to why he chose to pluck the humble Renault Clio from among a host of dazzling vehicles for special mention".

The pussy whipped Brand, I should mention, was so overjoyed at my sacking from the Sunday Times that he suffered a premature ejaculation of schadenfreude when he and his pug faced harridan of a wife rushed into print to celebrate. Here’s the link and it’s worth a read because it serves to illustrate how sanctimonious and petty minded some journalists can be.

http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/robertbrand/2008/04/11/save-us-from-the-save-david-bullard-brigade/

Of course, what Brand and pug face hadn’t reckoned with was the inevitable return of Bullard and the need for a bit of good Old Testament "smiting of thine enemies”. Long overdue in my opinion.

Where Brand and the bouffant haired Caxton Professor of Journalism and Media Studies (from henceforth to be known as the bouffant haired CPOJAMS), Anton Harber, are so wrong though is in their assumption that travelling around the world driving cars and writing about them for a living is any sort of fun at all. Frankly, given the choice between being a highly paid editor without a newspaper to edit and being a lowly motoring hack then I would go for the former. How much cosier to sit all day drinking whisky at The Grillhouse than waiting for delayed flights to Florence. But I digress.

Brand’s comment complains that we don’t tell the reader who pays for trips and what motivates our reporting. Why, for example, did I choose the humble Renault Clio for special mention he wonders? Sadly I missed the article when it first appeared otherwise I would have probably gone down to Grahamstown and punched him in the face for suggesting that my integrity was in question. I should have thought it completely unnecessary to have to explain to readers that the trip was not paid for by the journalist and certainly not by his impoverished newspaper.

But just in case Brand and the bouffant haired CPOJAMS are tuning in to NewsTime (and you can bet your life they are) let me come clean. Despite being a “disgraced” ex columnist from the ST I still get given very nice cars to drive and still receive plenty of invitations that could possibly prejudice my writing. The fact that they don’t speaks volumes about my integrity.

Take the new Porsche Panamera for example. I could tell you that it’s a piece of rubbish and that would no doubt please the bouffant haired CPOJAMS and Brand because it would indicate that I was an upstanding member of the hack community. And since they haven’t been offered one to drive it would possibly assuage some of the envy that clearly courses through their veins. But I would be lying and that would be an even worse crime for a hack (albeit an outlawed one).

What I am about to tell you has absolutely nothing to do with the many foreign trips that Porsche have hosted where I have flown down the sharp end of the aircraft and been wined and dined on new car launches. Neither has it anything to do with the occasional loan of one of their gloriously powerful cars to enable me to visit my ex girlfriends. Or the very enjoyable trip we made just after the Easter weekend to the town formally known as Nelspruit in a Porsche Panamera Turbo followed by a very agreeable luncheon and a flight back to Joburg. If the Panamera was crap no amount of schmoozing would tempt me to say otherwise. It never did in four and a half years of Car Torque on SABC3 or seven years of writing about cars for the ST so why I would want to live down to Brand’s jaundiced image of motor journalists I can’t imagine.

Let’s start with the facts. When Porsche announced that were going into the 4 door luxury sedan market the purists groaned. After all, here is a company known for it’s superbly engineered sports cars the look of which hasn’t changed dramatically in well over 40 years. The 911 is a motoring icon. But the naysayers hadn’t exactly been welcoming to the Boxster, the Cayenne or the Cayman and all of those have done very well for Porsche’s bottom line. So now we have to accept that Porsche manufactures a range of performance cars for different lifestyles. Which is why a four door luxury sedan had to come eventually.

Looks-wise it has been called rude names but I think it looks terrific. More so in the metal than on the page but the pics still give you some idea of what to expect. It’s a 911 that has been stretched to fit four passengers but front and back it is unmistakably a Porsche sports car. And that’s the view most other road users will see. At the back there is a good sized hatch door which opens up to reveal decent boot space, even without the rear seats folded forward. The interior is very different from other luxury sedans in the R1 mln upwards price range. For a start, there really are only four seats (two separate at the back). But what’s the big deal? You can buy a Rolls Royce Phantom for much more and still only get two seats in the back. Then there’s the dashboard layout which will be familiar to anyone who has ever driven a 911. It’s pure sports car; as is the PDK double clutch automatic transmission, the highly responsive steering, the excellent brakes and the high speed handling. Whereas you may wallow a bit in some of the other executive barges, in the Panamera you feel very involved. If this isn’t as much fun to drive as a 911 Carrera then the difference in enjoyment would have to be measured in a lab….it’s that small.

Derek Watts was my co-driver and we drove both the Turbo and the S version. Derek, as many of you know, is a tall chap and he easily fitted into the driving seat and found a comfortable driving position. He even fitted into the rear seat without disturbing a hair on his head. Obviously the Turbo, at R1,665,000, has the bragging rights but my choice would be the S4 at R1,065,000. Both have the powerful V8 4.8 litre engine but the Turbo produces 368kW to the none too shabby 294kW the S pushes out. That is astonishingly good value for a car that hits 100km from zero in a claimed 4.8 seconds. An Audi S8 will cost you R1,213,500, a BMW 750i R1,269,000 and a Mercedes S500 R1,209,000 and they are all slower. So that’s power and value for money done and dusted but what about luxury? Does it really compete?





Well, I can’t remember if there was a driver’s seat that gave you a massage or an infra red camera option so you can see a Mahindra Scorpio in the fog and I don’t very much care to be honest. What I want in a luxury sedan is leather, wood, brushed aluminium, a good sound system, gadgets to fiddle with, a sat nav and all those things that tell your passenger that you appreciate the finer things in life. The Panamera has them all and they all make the driving experience that much more enjoyable. I shouldn’t even need to mention this but the finish on the inside is faultless with incredible thought evidently having gone into the design of even the smallest switch. At over a million rand you want the cockpit of a car like this to be a good place to be and the Panamera ticks that box.

The really good news though is that there is now a V6 3.6 litre model at R755000 which almost seems like a printing mistake for a Porsche price. It hits the 100km/h in just over six seconds and has a top speed of 259km/h. That makes it half a million cheaper than a BMW 750i and it’s faster, better looking and has more kudos because you won’t be mistaken for Trevor Manuel.

Sorry folks….I know I’ve been heavily wined and dined over the years but this is a no brainer. You have the antlers of Stuttgart on your bonnet, better resale value than the rivals, a long pedigree of engineering excellence, every conceivable luxury, superior performance and all at a price below the competition. What are you waiting for?