Finding myself more than somewhat short of the odd £65,000 to spend on my next motor car, I find it hard to credit that those who do have said sums sloshing to and fro in the petty cash tin should be overmuch concerned with such piffling trivia as running costs.
However, with UK market perceptions perverted by our unusually large company car quota, this does seem, increasingly, to be the case. So, where once the average thrusting executive would settle for nothing less than the Saturday morning golf club car park status-enhancing rumble of eight cylinders to hallmark the touchdown of his latest thrusting executive, the oleaginous thrum of a thrifty 3.0 litre V6 turbodiesel would now appear to suffice.
Here, then, leather upholsteries smeared by a steady trickle of hot, salt, in memoriam V8 tears, are a clutch of style-conscious four-door offerings to which, until all too recently, one would have readily attributed eight-cylinder petrol power; Porsche’s £59,435 Panamera Diesel, the £52,993 Mercedes-Benz CLS 350 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY SPORT, Jaguar’s £69,520 XJ 3.0L Diesel Portfolio LWB and the £48,010 Audi A7 Sportback 3.0 TDI SE S tronic.
In truth, in the case of the Audi and Mercedes, the V6 turbodiesel will have to suffice, since V8 power isn’t an option available to British buyers.
Yes, yes… I know it might not feel like a fit, but the Jaguar’s here for two very good reasons: Firstly, it can’t be denied that it oozes sufficient sheer style to take the fight to these three cod-coupe Teutons. And, secondly, a closer investigation reveals the Gaydon glamourpuss to be an entirely competitive price proposition: Jaguar provided us with a long-wheelbase version, the as-tested price rising to £77,420 almost entirely by dint of lavish rear seat entertainment goodies. However, the stubbier SWB sibling comes in at £66,515 and (a couple of grand’s worth of trinkets such as adaptive cruise control and DAB radio not withstanding) is pretty much fully loaded with toys straight out of the box.
Ladling equipment aboard the others to the point of approximate parity brings the Mercedes price to £66,228 and that of the A7 to £63,430. In the case of the Panamera, the price rises to £67,715, but that does include over £3000 for posh wheels and an hilarious two and half grand for, erm, blue paint… All of which makes the Audi the bargain of the pack. Just.
Now, let’s forget the brand snobbery that inevitably holds sway in these executive headwaters for a moment, and consider the quantities of curtain twitching elicited by these four on stylistic merit alone.
If ever proof were needed that it isn’t until the felt-tip rummagings reach the rump of a car that its designer starts to properly earn his paycheque, these four plush rush with hush aspirants provide it, in spades. We are, strictly speaking, talking rear three-quarter view here, and it’s rare to find four such wildly different takes on finishing what you started in the hitherto ocular-safety-first executive class…
When it comes to the crunchy gravel catwalk I continue, I confess, to have difficulty with the Panamera. I can just about cope with the 911-left-on-the-party-baloon-pump a-tad-long looks from most angles -that blatantly Porsche proboscis proving appropriately imposing. But the rear engine installation-aping back of the car is so abruptly truncated that it mars what might otherwise be quite a svelte profile. Worse, the view from any further astern resembles nothing so much as a randy terrier humping a basketball.
Clearly (VW Tuareg-sourced Cayenne not counting), Porsche’s designers haven’t penned anything but 911s for so long they are now incapable of penning anything but 911s, albeit in a new and exciting range of different sizes.
To those of us whose childhood was accompanied by a parade of angular, slab-sided behemoths, the first evidence -in the shape of the 2005 CLS- that a Mercedes bends, came as something of a shock.
Indeed, I fear I was amongst those who dismissed the upshot of the covert operation in which a reckless Mercedes designer smuggled into the studio a set of French curves with which to assault a humble E-Class as merely mutton dressed as a banana. However, familiarity clearly breeds content, because today I’m such a convert that I now consider the last generation CLS to be a paragon of elegance.
Mercedes is wont to describe this replacement as its ‘James Bond Car’. Which is not to say that forward firing machine guns and an ejector seat playing host to a hapless Korean henchman have joined the legion list of driving assistance systems on offer, (most of which we recently so enjoyed spending a shouty eternity trying to switch off in the new M-Class)… Rather that, in purely catwalk terms, the newcomer lobs a little more gristle into the blancmange by replacing Pierce Brosnan with Daniel Craig.
This new-found musculature is most successfully evinced in a handsome new hooter, which looks best with the single strake, Sports model grille and optional, all-LED headlights housing 71 individual lamps, no less. Less pleasing is a side view in which further French curve frolics clash somewhat with the decidedly matronesque size of the rear wheel arches, the latter having now grown from E-Class whiff-of-Pullman to back-half-of-old-Bentley in stature.
Of these four contenders, the CLS plays it by far the safest in the rear three-quarter stakes, with an appropriately slippery rump that’ll never blow any frocks up. As a whole, the design proves undeniably striking from some angles, yet surprisingly colour sensitive and, perhaps, lacking the clean homogeny and sheer elegance of the original.
Seriously useful word, ‘striking’… The missus’ latest mid-life crisis haircut; an astonishingly loud item of knitwear rescued from the foothills of the Andes by a close chum; a maiden aunt’s dubious application of paint on canvas; experimental cooking of the Duck a la banana school… All may be safely dubbed striking without risk of either commitment or offence.
In the case of the undeniably striking Jaguar XJ, however, I’ll clamber off the fence and go on record as saying I think it looks absolutely splendid. Sitting on a grassy knoll in the middle of Birmingham, watching it schmooze by in traffic, the LWB XJ has tremendous road presence, standing out like a Blue Riband liner on a boating pond.
Admittedly, in the manner of Jennifer Lopez, the rear view might at first appear gently out of proportion (not unpleasant, just, well… a tad larger than expected) but, replete with delicious details like the little ridge of red LEDs that stands proud of the rear lamp cluster, it has grown on me with every fresh viewing.
Meanwhile, slipping quietly along almost entirely under the radar, it’s the A7 Sportback which takes the honours in the rear three-quarter stakes. Pretty as a picture both from behind and in profile, the only modicum of ocular clunk suffered by the Audi may be attributed to Walter de’Silva’s Big Grille policy.
Cars in this class cry out for horizontality in the hooter department to provide the appropriate essence of executive. To my eye, the proportions of its oval grille make even the XJ struggle a little to find sufficient visual width. Of all the current Audis, only the R8 and -because there’s something of the pocket Bentley in the proportion- the S5 wear the big grille with any confidence. Elsewhere, all simply appears too tall.
Having mercifully back-tracked on his attempts to visit similar styling on the VW model range, perhaps de’Silva might yet be persuaded to look again at Audi…
Given a first class driving position and an entirely comfortable seat, the extent to which the Panamera interior will win you over depends on your admiration for the first iterations of the fiendishly expensive Vertu phones on which the centre console switchgear appears to have been styled, and how adroitly your sausage fingers cope with the rather small buttons.
That aside, the only real ergonomic glitch is the absence of steering wheel-mounted controls. Because Porsche (or, indeed, any of the German marques) doesn’t hand the centre console systems for right-hand drive cars, the gear lever is directly in the way of the multimedia system volume control.
Despite a fairly upright rake, life in the Panamera’s strictly two seat-format rear is comfortable enough, with adequate legroom when I sit behind myself. There’s air aplenty too, with independent control and both centre console and B pillar-mounted vents. The loadspace is somewhat shallow, however, so it’s a good job the seats will fold flat.
Both Audi and Mercedes-Benz have now honed their instrumentation and ergonomics to the point of near perfection, and there’s little to choose between them other than preference of style. The A7’s instrument binnacle is a paragon of crisp clarity, and I’m entirely at home with the multimedia system’s operation, though there’s a strong argument in favour of the Mercedes equivalent, which allows you to change functions on screen rather than via separate buttons.
In the face of A7’s almost entirely chthonic and Teutonic finishes, the CLS comes across as a little more lounge-lizard lavish, and the driver’s seat is ridiculously comfortable and remains so over hundreds of miles. Whilst the Audi’s switchgear is utterly bullet-proof, splitters of hairs might gripe at the Mercedes’ plastic air-conditioning temperature knobs that cry out to be turned in cold-to-the-early-morning-touch aluminium, and the flimsy feel to the centre armrest lid hinge mechanism.
Fastback styling brings a perception of confinement to life in the back of both cars, though neither leg nor headroom is inadequate in my case. The Audi combines fold flat rear seats with a parcel shelf so pale of hue that reflections all but obliterate the driver’s view astern.
The Jaguar’s creak-and-reek full-leather interior constitutes the original curate’s egg. Its individuality cannot be denied and, though a little chrome heavy for my tastes, wonderful touches of whimsy you’d simply never find in a car coming out of Germany abound. However, even glossing over a clock of sub-Ratner’s quality, there are a couple of notable glitches that somewhat spoil the ship.
Firstly, the front seats just aren’t good enough. They’re too flat, unwelcoming and lacking in lateral support. There’s little point in having electrical hugging adjustment to the seat side bolsters if all they do when activated is merely push you forward out of the seat in the manner of an orange pip squeezed between fingertips. I know Jaguar is eager to shed the gentleman’s club image of yore, but a comfy chair is just a comfy chair, wherever you find it.
The 8” centre console touch screen also disappoints. I must confess to far preferring touch screen systems to the more distracting, knob-operated alternative, but not if the reality is a screen so inelegant, insensitive to the touch and slow to react that serious digit bruising is the outcome of loading in a particularly lengthy destination address. Nor is the sat’ nav’ system itself exactly top drawer.
But the most unfortunate new-age addition, and that from which there’s no escape, is the replacement of analogue dials in the driver’s instrument binnacle with, er, virtual analogue dials. Sorry, Jag’, they may allow you to force-feed the driver all manner of ancillary information (most of which is already accessible from the centre console screen a hand-span away) but, lacking the visual crispness and quality of the real thing, they just don’t cut the ocular mustard.
With 125mm more rear seat legroom than the standard car, there’s stacks of space in the back. Sadly, the rear seats aren’t any more immediately comfortable than those up front, and the electric adjustment on this model is somewhat Victorian in deportment terms, merely moving the occupant from vaguely reclined to bolt upright. The headrests, by contrast, are sublimely comfortable.
As discussed, all four cars boast V6 turbodiesels of a whisker under 3.0 litres in displacement. The XJ’s unit develops 271bhp and 443lb ft of torque, the CLS 261bhp and a handsome 457lb ft. Unsurprisingly, since they’re identical but for 8-speed rear drive transmission in the Porsche and 7-speed all-wheel drive in the Audi, both the Panamera and the A7 muster 247bhp and 406 lb ft of torque.
Porsche has admitted that the Panamera was never designed to accommodate a diesel powerplant, and, unfortunately, you can tell; this is not a happy installation. An unseemly amount of vibration and noise penetrates the cockpit on tickover, suggesting trick engine mountings have been shunned in favour of the humble bolt.
On the move, too, the unit is rarely as quiet as you’d expect, and particularly raucous when stepping outside its narrow, 1000rpm band of peak torque. It’s almost as if it has been decided that, this being a Porsche, we do need to hear the powerplant, even if it isn’t a particularly engaging racket.
In stark contrast, the same powerplant installed in the A7 remains astonishingly quiet at all times and all velocities, with the Mercedes and Jaguar units finding a fractionally more vocal parity.
Though the CLS takes the straight line honours on paper and the Jaguar always feels the fastest car here, there’s little to choose between these four in performance terms. All but the Panamera boast sub-6.5 second 0-62mph times, and all but the Panamera top out at a governed 155mph.
So, with Mercedes and Audi shod in 19” wheels, and the Porsche and Jaguar 20”, and all four cars sporting their own take on adaptive suspension damping, we must turn to ride and handling characteristics for clearer adjudication.
The Panamera’s steering is all you could wish for from a giant 911 –accurate, nicely weighted and linear, and the car (the heaviest here by some degree) turns in with surprising alacrity for such a porker. But the gently firm ride is utterly baffling. Driving on inferior surfaces that leave the others relatively unphased, it’s immediately apparent that the Porsche is constantly jostling around like the old Parisian metro trains that used to run on rubber wheels.
It’s a disconcerting, blancmange-bushings sense of disconnection between bodyshell and undercarriage that can only, at least in part, be shackled by keeping the adjustable dampers in Sport mode. Even then, the car will all too often shrug and fidget its way along surfaces that the rest treat with a more admirable disdain. Perhaps suspension and engine mountings might be exchanged to good effect?
The Jaguar is quite simply a terrific drive. A mine of detailed information, the steering may be a tad light for some, but it’s unnervingly accurate and sweetly responsive. The XJ’s body control is also unimpeachable and, allied to appropriately tenacious levels of grip, makes for such effortless, scything progress you’ll invariably find yourself travelling somewhat more rapidly than your nicely cosseted senses would have you believe.
The only gently subjective downside to the XJ’s suspension set-up is the high degree of nugget that has been allowed to filter through to the cabin by way of secondary ride characteristics. This does, undeniably, add a sporting feel to the driving experience, but may not be to everyone’s taste in this class.
Having had occasion to grumble about the tough-love ride of many past Audi’s, it came as a positive revelation to pile aboard the A7 and discover that the ride comfort gap between it and the CLS has closed considerably. Ultimately, though, despite that fact that the A7 is the quieter car by some margin, the Mercedes boats better steering with a greater feeling of involvement, marginally superior body control and a more luxurious ride quality.
Tough call, then… After a hard days thrusting, any executive worth his salt would be delighted to find himself wafting home in any of these four machines. For myself, even if I could come to terms with the Porsche’s looks, I prefer to be stirred rather than shaken by my wheels, so the conventionally sprung V8 manual Panamera remains the monarch of the model range.
The Jaguar has such character, presence and panache. Combine that with an entirely engaging and entertaining driving experience and it’s hard to resist. I’m going to, though, because I don’t think I’d be happy or comfortable enough on board for the duration.
Sitting demurely in the background with its finest stylistic attributes hidden away astern, the Audi does everything so competently it’s almost impossible to find fault, other than to suggest that it perhaps fails to engage the driver in any particular fashion other than that of ruthless efficiency.
And that’s why, ultimately, I’m off home in the CLS. Though I’d love to steal the A7’s instrument binnacle, the Mercedes interior offers the most superior environment overall. And, though I’d love to steal the Jaguar’s steering, the Mercedes artful combination of dynamic ability and occupant comfort proves entirely seductive.