Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo review - Practicality, comfort and boot space
Improved rear headroom, more luggage space and occasional five-seat capability enhance the Panamera’s practicality
One of the main reasons for choosing a Sport Turismo over the standard Panamera is that the shooting brake styling gives the car an edge on practicality. The boot is a little larger, there’s a little more headroom in the rear and the Sport Turismo is also suitable for occasional five-seat use, whereas the Panamera hatch is strictly a four-seater. However, where the Panamera hatch is also available in long-wheelbase ‘Executive’ trim, which offers significantly more rear legroom, the Sport Turismo can only be ordered on the standard wheelbase.
There’s no doubting the Sport Turismo’s comfort levels, though; the seats hug and support you in all the right places and with the high centre console you feel cocooned when sitting in the driver or passenger seat. There’s plenty of storage space for oddments, too, with a cubby in the centre console and generous door pockets.
On the optional air suspension, the ride is excellent when in Normal mode, and you’re well insulated from wind noise, although tyre noise on the larger alloys can be a little intrusive on some surfaces.
Size
There’s no escaping the fact that the Sport Turismo is a very large car – it’s over five metres long and nearly two metres wide, so it can be a bit of a handful when threading your way through city streets or negotiating width restrictions. By way of comparison, the Panamera is almost identical in size to a BMW 7 Series saloon.
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Nevertheless, visibility is actually quite good, even though the car doesn’t have a huge glasshouse, and while you’ll need a large space in which to park, manoeuvring into it isn’t too much of a battle.
Leg room, head room and passenger space
As you’d expect from a vehicle with these dimensions, the interior accommodation is pretty accomplished, although for a car of this size its ‘4+1’ seating arrangement is perhaps a bit of a disappointment. But this is how Porsche describes it and, in effect, it means the middle ‘seat’ in the rear is only to be considered for occasional use; a trip to the pub would be fine, a cross-continent drive would not.
Legroom for the two outer rear passengers is more than adequate and the Sport Turismo’s raised roofline does offer a little more in the way of headroom for passengers in the rear.
Boot
Another perceived advantage of the Sport Turismo is that its shooting brake styling will offer a bigger boot than in the Panamera hatch, and it does, but probably not by as much as you might be thinking.
In the Sport Turismo you get between 520 and 1,390 litres of luggage carrying capacity, which is between 20 litres (with the seats up) and 50 litres (when they’re folded) more than in the standard Panamera. However, slightly more bulky items can be carried and the 40:20:40-split folding rear seats do make it a more practical proposition. The seats also fold virtually flat, which is a bonus when carrying larger items.
