Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by petrol engines and utilizing the 5-door hatchback body style within the same 'Luxury car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (front for the Audi and rear in the case of the Porsche). The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 252hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 420hp engine designed by Porsche.

Unfortunatelly, neither of the two vehicles was submitted to the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) testing. This makes it virtually impossible for me to pick one over the other and I'm generally against buying such cars as the safety should really always come first. 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, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, Panamera offers a considerable difference of 11% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Audi does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Audi with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Porsche badge with 3.9 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as Audi A7 rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Porsche is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.8 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 287 kilometers per hour, 37km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be Audi A7, averaging around 5.9 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (48 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 47% difference compared to Panamera!

Audi is apparently more reliable, not too much, but just enough. 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, Panamera offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. It all continues in the same 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... At the end, as much as I'd like to give you a winner here, it's simply a pure tie if you ask me. 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.