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It’s fast, handles superbly and is luxurious , but is the Panamera the better performance estate?
MODEL TESTED: Porsche Panamera Turbo Sport Turismo
PRICE: £121,935 ENGINE: 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, 542bhp
THE Panamera Turbo Sport Turismo is a natural rival for the Audi RS 6, as the specs show, but it’s pricier, as we’ve already seen. Is it worth the extra?
Design & engineering
PORSCHE’S Panamera Turbo Sport
Turismo uses the same basic engine as the RS 6. It’s the twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8 used by many Volkswagen Group brands, but here in the Panamera there’s no 48-volt mild-hybrid system.
The unit produces 542bhp and 770Nm of torque, so it’s 50bhp and 30Nm down on the Audi, but the Porsche is a little lighter, so performance should be similarly quick. There’s four-wheel drive, too, with double-wishbone front suspension and a multi-link rear axle. The Panamera has an eight-speed dual-clutch auto gearbox, against the Audi’s conventional auto.
The Panamera sits on Porsche’s MSB platform, which underpins this Sport Turismo model and the Panamera hatch, unlike the RS 6, which uses the MLB evo architecture. Also, unlike the RS 6, Porsche’s clever active rear diff is part of a £3,527 pack that features active roll control (as on the Audi), although adaptive air suspension is standard here.
There’s cylinder deactivation, as in the Audi, while the Porsche features active aerodynamics, so there’s easily a level of tech to compete with the RS 6, even if a few more pieces are optional. A sports exhaust will cost you £2,313 and ceramic brakes come in at £6,707.
The interior feels more special than the Audi’s, while quality is slightly higher, too. It seems sportier because you sit lower in the car, but whereas the RS 6 shares its cabin with lower rungs of the A6 range, the Panamera is a more exclusive model, so this makes it feel a little more distinctive and individual.
The materials are lovely and the basic spec of this high-end model matches the Audi’s, with nav, a digital dash display, heated front and rear leather seats, front and rear parking sensors, cruise control, climate control, LED lights and keyless operation.
Turbo models also get 20-inch alloy wheels. isȏ4L4L
Driving
DESPITE being down on power and torque, the Panamera’s performance still exceptional. The launch control and incredible all-wheel-drive traction meant it sprinted from 0-60mph in 3. 2 seconds; that’s incredibly quick for a family estate, even a high-end one.
Its in-gear grunt was equally impressive, covering the 50-70mph test in seventh gear (it wouldn’t do it in eighth) in 9.5 seconds. This was slower than the Audi due to gearing differences, but both cars offer superb levels of flexibility thanks to their engines.
The Porsche sounds as characterful as the Audi through its sports exhaust, while it’s equally as refined as the RS 6 in the quieter mode, burbling away unobtrusively when cruising, but roaring with a deep bellow in sportier settings.
Throttle response is brilliant and neither car has much turbo lag, but the Porsche feels a little sharper. Its PDK gearbox shuffles ratios as smoothly as the Audi’s auto, but under hard acceleration or in manual mode its shifts are quicker and slightly less jerky.
The Porsche does feel firmer on the move, though, and doesn’t quite offer the compliance of the RS 6’s
chassis, even if by any other standards the Panamera rides really sweetly. The trade-off for this slightly sharper edge to the chassis is that the Porsche’s body control is noticeably tauter in any of the driving modes, and in Sport or Sport plus it offers genuine sports car levels of grip and agility.
The steering is much more natural in the Porsche, with a more consistent weight, response and feedback to the driver’s inputs. It’s also the more engaging driver’s car and the Panamera just shades the RS 6 in this respect, because it matches it when it comes to refinement and (almost) comfort.
Practicality
AS an estate car the Panamera isn’t as versatile. Its 520-litre boot is 45 litres down on the RS 6’s load capacity, yet this isn’t as much as you might think, given the Porsche’s sleeker rear silhouette. But the raked roofline does impact headroom in the back seats, while legroom isn’t as good as in the RS 6. What does hurt practicality a little more is that Porsche calls its car a ‘4+1’ seater, with the middle rear seat more of an occasional jump seat. The Audi will more happily seat five people.
The Porsche still features a powered tailgate and if you opt for the £1,536 rear-wheel steering (which the RS 6 gets as standard) it’s just as manoeuvrable. A reversing camera is £509 and you might want to add it because rear visibility isn’t the Panamera’s strength.
Ownership
THERE’S also less safety tech in the Porsche. If you want autonomous braking you’ll need the £1,787 pack that also adds adaptive cruise and pedestrian detection.
Porsche’s InnoDrive package (£2,438) brings traffic-jam assist and semi-autonomous tech. Lane-keep assist is £795. Although more of this is optional than on the RS 6, the Panamera Sport Turismo should still be very safe family transport.
Running costs
IT might mainly be business tycoons who are running these models as company cars. Both sit in the top 37 per cent Benefit-in-Kind tax bracket (even though the Panamera emits less CO2 at 243g/km vs 268g/km for the RS 6) it’s no surprise that the cheaper Audi will work out as the cheaper car to run.
This is a relative term, of course, because higherrate earners running the Audi as a company car will still have to pay a whopping £15,845 to The Treasury every year. The Panamera is even worse, with £17,790 going into the government’s coffers.