Review: Spark Panamera Turbo S e-hybrid

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mazspd3jase
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Posts: 337
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Location: Houston, Texas

Review: Spark Panamera Turbo S e-hybrid

Post by mazspd3jase » Mon Jan 14, 2019 3:30 am

My personal review of the Spark Panamera Turbo S e-hybrid

Porsche

Spark – Panamera Turbo S e-hybrid.

I have to say, this model (due to the extremely high price generally of Spark models) had me on the fence; however, I found one that was somewhat “reasonably priced” on ebay and on a whim, decided to take the seller up on “or best offer”. I fully expected my offer to be rejected honestly, as it was significantly lower than the “buy it now price”. In that respect (and the fact that it’s the only current offering of the new body style Panamera, I was excited to get this).

Now on to the model: I had hoped for spectacular and was rewarded with “just ok”. Don’t get me wrong, it is a beautiful model and the highlight is the paint job for sure. In a word, it is flawless. Beyond that, the proportions appear correct.

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Moving forward though, I’m not sure why these cost so much – in all honesty, GT Spirit models are a bargain pricewise and offer a greater level of detail in my opinion. A few examples I noted are the lack of carpeting, absolutely poor choice of material for seatbelts (they were a rubber material with PE buckles). Tail lights appear to be painted and have decals used to draw out details). In turn, the badging/model designation is all done in decals and I can see why-it would be difficult to do these in PE as they are two toned since this is the e-hybrid version of the car. The main Porsche badge on the rear is raised, so is nice and done well (resembling PE very closely).

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Headlights are somewhat nicer but the four projector lenses in each light housing are weird metal pieces (two were loose so I had to removed the lense and glue them back in place).

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The wheels are well detailed/molded(there is even a valve stem); however, the recessed areas are poorly painted, so I will likely fix this. Another oddity is that the tires are actually resin (appears they mold the rim and tire as one unit on these). The calipers are decent and there are PE rotors.

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Interior is ok but not spectacular (again, I compare to GT Spirit here and believe they do a MUCH better job). While I had the model apart, I did flock to create carpet and placed much better looking seatbelt in place of the terrible ones the model came with-I did use their PE buckles though as they look nice).

Lastly, the part that I disliked the most was the model’s ride height and wheel track. It sits extremely high right out of the box and the wheels sit far too deep in the wheel wells. I naturally fixed these errors (my model edit pics are below).

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The final thing I found I actually liked on the model was the fact that Spark did the windows in a multi-part design; they are two piece units on each side of the car with a PE frame for the window trim (giving the windows some depth and detail). I still changed mine though, as will be seen below.

If you are curious to see changes I made, I have pics posted in my collection thread.

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[KRAFTIG]
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Re: Review: Spark Panamera Turbo S e-hybrid

Post by [KRAFTIG] » Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:19 am

Thanks for the review. Is this a dealer edition model? If so this does influence the price. What did you end up paying for it?

mazspd3jase
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Posts: 337
Joined: Tue Oct 14, 2014 1:54 am
Location: Houston, Texas

Re: Review: Spark Panamera Turbo S e-hybrid

Post by mazspd3jase » Tue Jan 15, 2019 1:53 am

[KRAFTIG] wrote:Thanks for the review. Is this a dealer edition model? If so this does influence the price. What did you end up paying for it?

I dont believe its a dealer edition....I have minimal experience with this company or their boxing practices. its currently up on ebay from a number of common ebay sellers. The seller I bought from had it at 189.00 or best offer. I offered and paid 165.00. seems some of their recent releases (the 718 Boxster is one i've seen) are hovering just under $200. but the 50th anniverary 911 is anywhere from $250-300 . Anyhow, their pricing boggles me...and again, i love this model because of things mentioned and the fact that no one else is doing the current Panamera made the purchase worthwhile.

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