• One of the best cabins in its class
• Intuitive technology, great driving position
• Extra passenger screen is quite wasteful

How is the quality and layout?

Excellent. Porsche interior have long been some of the best in the game, and the new Panamera is no exception. It’s a sobering lesson in restrained simplicity, especially when you compare it to the crystal-laden cabin of the latest BMW 7 Series or the touchscreen-dominated dashboard found in the Mercedes S-Class.

The only fault we could find with the cabin is the black plastic Porsche has used on the centre console. It’s rather prone to scratching. But the rest of the cabin is beautifully assembled – and you can even have your seats trimmed in a vegan-friendly upholstery option for the first time.

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We’d urge you to exercise caution when speccing your car, though. Porsche’s options list is quite predatory and, if you go too daft, you can easily add more than £10,000 of extras to your car’s interior alone. We know. We’ve spent far too much time fiddling around on Porsche’s configurator.

Infotainment and tech

Porsche has also nailed this by keeping the setup basic. You get a simple touchscreen for your media and navigation functions, a digital display ahead of the driver that looks and acts like Porsche’s old analogue gauge clusters and a row of physical climate control switches on the centre console. Praise. Be.

Both screens are ultra-clear and easy to use – and we much prefer the climate switches to the fiddly touchscreen controls you get in the S-Class. Other brands (especially those sharing resource with Porsche inside the Volkswagen Group) could learn a lot from here.

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You can also pay an extra £1,289 for a passenger touchscreen. It has a clever polarising filter and the ability to connect to a set of Bluetooth headphones to allow the passenger to watch a film without distracting the driver. We really can’t see the point in spending the cash, though, as it otherwise displays the same content that’s on the central screen. And wouldn’t the front passenger have a phone in their pocket?

Comfort

• Incredibly supportive front seats
• Surprisingly supportive rear seats
• Every version is comfortable

Porsche’s seats are always great. The firm has proved that an electric seat mechanism isn’t a hinderance on finding the perfect driving position, as the Panamera’s seats can drop almost right down to the level of the floor.

As standard, you get 14-way electrically adjustable seats, but you can pay a little extra (on the 4 and 4S models) to have 18-way sports seats with a memory function. The former seats are more accommodating, while the latter ones do a better job of holding you in. Our advice? Try before you buy and pick the ones that suit your body type.

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The Panamera’s rear seats are a little more special than your average luxury saloon, though. They’re shaped like the front seats, offering stiffer bolstering and better shoulder support than a conventional bench seat, which means even your rear passenger won’t be thrown around when you’re charging down a twisty road.