5 Four-Door Family Vehicles That Are Seriously Fun To Drive

Driving a sports car means sacrificing some degree of space and practicality. Sure, you can buy a sports car with four seats or limited cargo capacity, but for drivers needing to cater for a family and their belongings, that won't be enough. Likewise, most conventional family cars sacrifice driving excitement in the name of everyday practicality. Naturally, some are more interesting to drive than others, but in most cases, it's safe to assume that an affordably priced family car won't deliver the driving thrills of a sports car.

Drivers with deeper pockets, however, don't necessarily need to make the same compromises. With a big enough budget, you can get a family car that happily pulls double duty as a sports car when not needed for hauling around kids and luggage.

Regardless of whether you're looking for a zero-emissions rocket ship, an old-school V8 muscle sedan, or a refined German long-distance mile muncher, there are plenty of family-friendly performance cars on the market in 2026. These are some of our personal favorites, with SlashGear's review team being able to personally confirm that each one is enormously fun to drive, in addition to being impressively practical.

Not every fun-to-drive family hauler looks exceptional on paper — the 2026 Acura MDX Type S certainly doesn't. Its 355 hp and 354 lb-ft of torque are fairly unremarkable figures for its segment. The three-row SUV's interior space is competitive but not surprising, and its cabin is comfortable and luxurious but hardly particularly revolutionary.

The secret ingredient that sets the MDX Type S apart from the rest lies in how well Acura manages to balance all of the different roles that a sporty, luxurious SUV has to fulfil. We found it consistently entertaining to drive, both on back roads and on commutes. There was even the right amount of noise from the exhaust — not enough to ever be grating when it wasn't wanted, but still enough to encourage you to put your foot down a bit more when the opportunity arose.

On top of that, the SUV was also a very comfortable way to get around, and its suite of tech was both comprehensive and easy to use. Its $77,400 starting price (including a $1,550 destination fee) is comparable to its competition, but no similarly priced option offers such a compelling blend of practicality and performance.

It's not a riot to drive, unlike some of the cars here, but it doesn't need to be. Instead, the Acura is the car that adds a heavy dose of fun into everyday trips, and it avoids most of the downsides that come with a traditional performance car.

The latest generation BMW M5 has a cohort of critics who don't like that it is now a plug-in hybrid. The same critics might also point to its increased weight and physical size as evidence that BMW has missed the mark. Those are all valid criticisms, but despite the changes, the M5 arguably still remains true to its core formula.

For starters, it's still a very entertaining car to drive. It also still serves as a practical family car, both in sedan form and in newly introduced Touring wagon form. That's two of the most important boxes ticked straight away. Factor in the long-distance comfort, grin-inducing straight line performance, and the long list of extras to customize the car to your tastes, and the result is a car that's still pitched squarely at well-heeled driving enthusiasts.

However, the M5 is far from perfect, despite its talents. Some minor issues with its infotainment system presented an irritating distraction during our time with it, especially considering this is a super-sedan with a price tag starts at $129,350 (including a $1,450 destination fee and a $2,600 gas guzzler fee).

The car's fuel economy was also pretty dismal given its status as a PHEV — we averaged 14 mpg over the course of a week with the M5 Sedan, despite the EPA reporting that its combined gas-and-electric economy should reach 47 mpge. It's flawed, then, but the M5 is still great fun to drive regardless.

An electric SUV might not seem like an obvious candidate for driving fun, but the 2026 Lucid Gravity is excellent at defying expectations. An EV with more than 800 hp on tap and a 0-60 mph time in the mid-3 second range isn't something you'd expect to see with three rows of seats and enough cargo capacity to carry furniture and other bulky items. The Gravity, though, does it all.

This car isn't just fast in a straight line either. When it comes to corners, the Gravity handles better than it has any right to, feeling more like a dedicated performance car than something you could use to transport a five-a-side soccer team to their next game. Lucid remains a niche player in the EV market, but the Gravity is further evidence that it deserves to be better known. Its price tag means that it's likely to remain a rarity though, since the Gravity Grand Touring that we tested starts from $100,750 (including an $1,850 destination fee).

The Cayenne is Porsche's best-selling car, but it isn't the brand's only family-friendly offering. Buyers who aren't keen on an SUV can go for a Panamera instead, which starts from $115,350 (including a $2,350 destination fee). The base variant produces 348 hp and will complete the sprint from 0-60 mph in a respectable 5 seconds flat, but higher trims are arguably where the most driving fun is found.

The Panamera GTS starts from $169,250, making it considerably pricier than a base model. However, when we tested both hybrid and non-hybrid variants of the Panamera in 2025, it was the non-hybrid GTS that came out on top. The GTS was more fun to drive, it sounded more distinctly like a Porsche, and its handling felt more like a sports car than the grand tourer-like E-Hybrid. Nothing manages to match the 911 for pure sports car feel and performance, but the Panamera GTS got pretty close while being a whole lot more practical as a daily-driven family hauler.

Back in 2025, GM announced that the current generation Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing will be axed after 2026. The automaker says a new generation will be developed, but it hasn't committed to a timeframe for its launch. However, in the meantime, the car remains on sale for a starting price of $103,420 (including a $1,795 destination fee and a $2,100 gas guzzler tax).

In a market where many sports cars now either feature some level of electrification or sport smaller displacement engines with fewer cylinders than their predecessors, the CT5-V Blackwing is an outlier. Cadillac crams a 6.2-liter supercharged V8 engine under the hood, which it says is good for 668 hp, mated to a six-speed manual transmission.

Just like the old-school muscle sedans, this car will shred its tires on command, but it's also a more accomplished track day toy than many might give it credit for. It's roomy and comfortable enough to handle family hauling duties too. We found its interior fit and finish lacking given its price, and as you might expect from a V8-powered sedan, fuel efficiency isn't exactly its strong suit. Anyone who can overlook those flaws will be rewarded with what's arguably one of the most fun family cars on sale today — at least, if they can get their order in fast enough before production ends.

SlashGear's review team has put the latest cars from virtually every major manufacturer to the test, and we drew on those reviews when selecting cars for inclusion here. Each car has been driven by a member of our team and given the seal of approval both for its capabilities as a spacious family-sized vehicle and for its driving appeal. Each car is also available as either a 2026 or 2027 model year at the time of writing.