Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by hybrid engines and utilizing the 5-door wagon body style within the same 'Luxury car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the Porsche and rear in the case of the BMW). The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 462hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 252hp engine designed by BMW.

The fact that the BMW got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, puts it sky-high safety-wise, in my eyes at least. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the luxury car segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Panamera offers a considerable difference of 24% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that BMW does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Porsche with an average rating of 4.0, and models under the BMW badge with 4.1 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as Panamera rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.3 out of 5.

Porsche is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.6 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 275 kilometers per hour, 40km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be 5 Series, averaging around 1.9 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (149 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 37% difference compared to Panamera.

BMW appears just a bit more reliable, although the difference is truly marginal. The most important thing when deciding between any two vehicles should always be safety, both passive and active. In my opinion, everything taken into account, 5 Series beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. From there things take a different direction, with Porsche outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... It's not difficult to say then that if I'd need to make a choice, it would definitely be the BMW. In any case that's my personal view, built upon all the data available to me. What should decide here though is the way you feel about the two vehicles, and I hope you'll find my guidelines useful in the process. In case you have two minutes to spare I invite you to define your needs, desires and budget and see which car would be chosen by the virtual adviser™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.