Choosing A Car

Best cars with a panoramic sunroof

• 3 min read

Ben Custard

Content Editor

Ben is a Content Editor at Motorpoint. He's written for Top Gear and Auto Express, and has written a book. He likes hot hatches, estates and weird Japanese cars

Let the sunshine in with a sliding sunroof. These are our favourite cars with a panoramic sunroof

Did you know that Britain is one of Europe’s biggest markets for convertible cars? Despite our skies being keen to dump rain on us as often as possible, we’re obviously a nation of optimists who revel at the chance to put the top down.

But even the best convertibles have drawbacks – they’re impractical and cramped, and sometimes aren’t as rigid as hardtop versions. If you want open-air motoring without any real compromises, you need a car with a panoramic sunroof.

We’ve listed the best cars with a panoramic sunroof below, with all the models correct at the time of writing. Which will you choose?

What is a panoramic sunroof?

A panoramic sunroof – or a pano sunroof if you’re busy – is a large panel of glass on a car’s roof that can slide or tilt open. It makes a car feel incredibly light and airy inside, and usually is opened with the press of a button by the front reading lamps. Often, it’ll be an optional extra – typically an expensive one! – but we’ve picked cars where a pano roof comes as standard.

Panoramic sunroofs are more in fashion than the more traditional, smaller sunroof your parents’ cars may have had. There’s also an important distinction between a panoramic sunroof and a panoramic glass roof – some cars, like the Fiat 500 and Tesla Model 3, have large glass roof panels that don’t open.

Is a panoramic sunroof worth it?

How often are you actually going to use it? That’s the main question you need to ask yourself. Like a hot tub, it’s an extravagance you think you’ll use all the time, but then it’s never quite the right time and you don’t use it as often as you’d hoped. Obviously, a sunroof is best enjoyed in good weather, and it’s best at low speeds. On the motorway, you might find that having the sunroof open creates too much wind noise – so if you’re a mega mile-muncher, you probably won’t be opening the sunroof very often. However, you might still appreciate the extra light in the cabin that a panoramic sunroof gives, even if you rarely open it.

Our advice would be to pick a car with a sunroof included, whether that’s a model where a sunroof is fitted on a particular trim level or cars that had it fitted as an optional extra. Panoramic sunroofs can sometimes add £1,000 to the price of a car, so it’s not an option you’ll want to tick if you’re not entirely sure how often you’ll use it.

You also need to factor in that a sunroof is heavy and reduces efficiency when it’s open, so you’ll be spending slightly more on fuel versus the same car without a sunroof.