People, people, people. There are times in life when a car needs to be equipped with a license plate flipper. For example, if the safety of the free world relies upon the completion of your mission, then add a flipper to your BD5. Or if you are a speed demon and do not want to get caught by photo radar while you do a late night top speed test. But driving around in broad daylight with you license plate blacked out? That’s just asking for it.
Police in Milton pulled over some moron with concealed front and rear plates. When confronted, the driver just admitted to installing a license plate flipper (got himself $220 in tickets). The news media picked up on the story and immediately sensationalized it with headlines like ‘Police Nab Porsche Driver with Concealed Plates’ but the truly sad part is that the car was a plain-old, 4-door, family sedan Porsche Panamera.
I understand, of course, why Porsche chose to build a four-door sedan. It’s the same reason Lamborghini started work on such a thing, and Aston Martin, too. These are small companies and it makes economic sense to squeeze as many models as possible from every component. You have the engine. You have the chassis. And you have a lot of people who won’t buy anything you make because they want four doors.
The trouble is, while Lamborghini and Aston Martin clearly employ talented stylists to ensure that an elongated, widened four-seat variation on a two-seater theme doesn’t end up looking like a supermodel who’s gone to fat, Porsche plainly gave the job to a janitor.