Wednesday 23rd September 2009

Driven: Audi A5 Sportback 3.0 TDI Quattro

PH takes the train to France for the UK launch of Audi's coupe/hatch. Go figure...

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Sportback in a lovely shade of blue

Some people seem to 'get' the Audi brand more than others and, while I can appreciate the many strengths of a successful product range, it's not a brand I've engaged with much since the demise of the B2 Coupes in the mid-80s. In turn, I suspect I'd be considered a little too 'woolly' for what has become the most crisply marketed VW outfit, and don't suppose for a minute I've been much of a loss to them.

So it was a bit of a surprise to find myself liking the new A5 Sportback quite as much as I did, having recently taken it on a whistle-stop tour to (of all places) Calais on the UK launch of this apparently genre-bending model.

Four door 'coupe' treatment looks good

Mainly, I liked the A5 Sportback because it has frameless windows, which combine with a rakish glasshouse and coupe-style roofline to impart an ever-so slightly retro 'GT' flavour to the car, mostly evident when climbing in and out. I also liked it because the one I drove came in a lustrous shade of metallic 'Aruba' blue, and because it has a pleasingly powerful rear graphic that mimics what I think is the best view of the A5 coupe on which it is (partially) based. As a car designed mainly to get on user-chooser lists of those greasy-pole climbers whose companies insist on a minimum of four doors for fleet cars, I think the styling works very well.

Car rides 1.5ins lower than the A4

It's practical and versatile too, with the coupe/hatch cross-over thing unlikely to be a factor in reducing the size of the weekly supermarket haul - you get almost as much space as an A4 Avant. Rear headroom is marginally more limited than in an A4 saloon, but your teenagers would have to be unusually etiolated for that to be an issue. If you've graduated from an 'ordinary' hatchback they may even think this car is rather cool, and not complain at all.

The other very likeable aspect of the Sportback I drove was its combination of a grunty 3.0 TDI V6 with quattro drivetrain, and a usually slick 7-speed DSG that made it decent fun to punt along the motorway. Mind you, specced-up as it was to a whopping £45k from the standard 3.0 TDI quattro SE S tronic's £33,225 list price, it would have been a shame if I hadn't liked it. Key extras included leather, 18ins alloys, Audi drive select (which allows you to fiddle with the presets for dampers, throttle response and power steering weighting), torque-vectoring 'sportdiff' on the rear axle, a 'Technology Package High' (adding £1995 and a level of extra functionality I can't begin to guess at), Xenons, electric front seats and a proper sunroof.

Hatchback rear is extremely versatile

The 3.0-litre lump delivers a muscular 240hp and 369lb ft, taking a scant 6.1secs for the 0-62mph sprint and topping 150mph. Thanks to the 7-speed robotic gearbox it's also efficient with a combined cycle mpg figure of 42.8mpg. And it's greenish - releasing 174 grams of CO2 back into the atmosphere for each kilometre you drive. (Incidentally, does anyone know how many grams of CO2 it would take to inflate a party balloon? I've often wondered...)

The ride quality has come in for some criticism in other reviews of the A5 Sportback range, but it seems mainly to have been aimed at the lesser-engined models - 2.0-litre TDI and TFSI versions are also available from launch.

Audi-ficionados will feel right at home

To me, the feel of this bigger 3.0 TDI version was unmistakeably 'Audi', which means a prodigious level of grip, decently weighted but not particularly incisive steering, and a ride that's perfectly acceptable on the motorway. Interestingly, the Audi UK launch itinerary took us from a hotel near Gatwick airport, around the M25 and down the M20 to the Eurotunnel, where we sat on a train for an hour before disembarking for a scoot around the silky-smooth back roads behind Calais. Maybe Audi will loan us another car for a few days so we can have a chance to try it on more testing British road routes, but we're quite happy to wait for the S5 Sportback revealed at Frankfurt the other day. (This new 333hp V6 petrol version goes on sale in the spring next year.) Meanwhile, in spite of criticisms levelled elsewhere, it would certainly be safe to say the Sportback is a competent, fast and comfortable motorway cruiser. With good looks on its side too, I'd say Audi has its audience pegged.

Cabin is comfortable and spacious for 4	S5 version arrives here in the spring
	Something for 'cutaway' fans

 

[oola]

Another car I just don't get. Also see BMW 5 Series GT, although the Audi scores better in the looked department as the GT looks like a Citreon C5 from the rear qtr.

[Frimley111R]

It looks just like my wife's A4 but with a hatchback. Summary: Nice quality interior, practical for the tip, dull as dishwater to drive.

[Crusoe]

not a chemist but some rough calculations

1 mole of CO2 gas is 44 g

(1g CO2) / ( 44 g/ mole) = 0.02273 moles CO2

1 mole any ideal gas @ STP = 22.4 L

(0.022.73 moles CO2)(22.4 L/m) = 0.5092 L

If you are referring to solid CO2 at a density of 1.56 g / cm^3 and at -79
C, then:

d = m/V and V = m/d

V = (1 g solid / (1.56 g/cm^3) = 0.641 cm^3 solid CO2

A block about 0.086 mm on each edge.

It would not hold that size for long because at "normal (sea-level) pressure" it would sublime away.

Assuming you blow up a balloon with your breath which is usually estimated to be around 4% CO2, and assuming an average balloon is a sphere of 40cm diameter the volume is V = (4/3) * Pi * R^3

A gram of pure CO2 would hardly inflate a small balloon though you would have less than a gram of CO2 in a average balloon if you blew it up with your breath at 4% CO2.

[poing]

Much prefer the look of that to the BMW equivalent and would consider one if I was in the market for an A4.

Loving the P.H. O'Meter

[The Donster]

Sat in the back of one of these at Frankfurt last week - bloody awful leg and headroom!

[off_again]

Is it me or is the blue one in the pictures look crap and the white one at the bottom look good?

I suspect that this is a 'see it in the metal' styled one - not seen one yet so cannot comment.

[Oddball RS]

News flash for German saloon maker - "It's practical and versatile too" hot of the PH website.

Why do we praise it, same with the 5 Series GT? instead we should slate them for being so slow to react, just like that other German trait of non folding rear seats, in 2009 it really is pony.

[The Milfman]

Does anyone else wonder why on earth there is such a hash of unpleasently shaded grey plastics in the interior?

Plastic I can cope with, as I can with grey but those two shades make it look like a ball of light grey play-do, of which, half has been sullied and rolled in with the other half. Maybe it's just me?!

Am sure the car is competent but it does little for me; style, looks or performance wise. Will no doubt be successful.

As you were.

Edited by The Milfman on Wednesday 23 September 13:10

[eggbod]

oh dear, sorry i'm just going to have a general audi rant.

<rant>

i hate all audi since the old 80's coupe.

they have rock hard seats, zero style, smelly aircon and rock hard suspension.

normally driven by a some muppet in the fast lane of the motorway with the 'led tw@t lights' turned on.

isn't it about time we stopped buying these things?
</rant>

[ExPat2B]

I think it is telling what this review does NOT say. I note use of words like "smooth roads" and "acceptable on the motorway"

The A5 sporthatchs main criticsm is that the suspension is mindbendingly, pointlessly stiff for what is effectively a large saloon so it can have pretentions of sportiness, without the usual benefits of great feedback from the controls. Thus rendering it dull to pilot on the twisty roads of these shores while also having a terrible ride.

Not a great combination, but the Audi marketing machine will make it the must have for the corporate crowd. Pehaps time to setup business as an osteopath.

[bencollins]

IT IS A HATCHBACK. NOTHING ELSE.
Coupes are small nimble cars, on a shortened chassis.
I hate the modern world which lies to me at every opportunity as if I was some halfwit. The voices in my head are saying it is time to kill again.

[kambites]

bencollins said:

Coupes are small nimble cars, on a shortened chassis.

That definition would remove the huge majority of coupes from the class.

[kambites]

ExPat2B said:

The A5 sporthatchs main criticsm is that the suspension is mindbendingly, pointlessly stiff for what is effectively a large saloon so it can have pretentions of sportiness, without the usual benefits of great feedback from the controls. Thus rendering it dull to pilot on the twisty roads of these shores while also having a terrible ride.

A design philosophy which BMW and indeed almost every other manufacturer of shopping cars seem to have been copying recently, too. I think it mostly comes down to the ridiculous tendency to fit huge wheels.

[Truckosaurus]

Is there a big market for the hatchback? Surely the only people it will appeal to are people who don't like the look (or image) of the Avant (which I think is better looking than the saloon or Sportback)

If they'd done a 3-dr version, that would be a different matter, market it as an A5 Sportback, then you'd have a 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-door version of the same car.

[JNR77]

remind anyone of a Rover SD1?

[mk1fan]

Yes it does.

Right let me get this straight. The A4 and A5 are the same car. The A4 name is assigned to the saloon and estate variants and the A5 name is assigned to the convertable, coupe and 5-door hatchback. Is the coupe availble as a hatchback too?

Have the team that name the 911 range moved to Audi as part of the merger?

Edited by mk1fan on Wednesday 23 September 14:05

[ewenm]

eggbod said:

oh dear, sorry i'm just going to have a general audi rant.

<rant>

i hate all audi since the old 80's coupe.

they have rock hard seats, zero style, smelly aircon and rock hard suspension.

normally driven by a some muppet in the fast lane of the motorway with the 'led tw@t lights' turned on.

isn't it about time we stopped buying these things?
</rant>

You don't have to buy one. Other people, who like the product, might buy one. Consumer choice is great isn't it?

[jprobert]

Forget the car - another automotive answer to a question that no-one actually asked (what do I know) - but a brilliantly written review. Reference to 'unusually etiolated teenagers' particularly high quality - less Troy Queefe, more Dylan Thomas. More like this please PH.

[ocdgeek]

Vauxhall/Opel were already selling cars in this genre almost 20 years ago - the Cavalier. The Ford Mondeo probably also falls into this bracket.

It seems to me that BMW (with their 5 series "GT") and Audi (with this) are trying an "emperor's new clothes" trick. They are selling a 5 door hatchback and by the mere trick of naming it a coupe, the motoring press seems to be lapping this up and hailing them the creators of a new niche.

I think the tag 'coupe' should be reserved for cars that are either;
(i) the 2 door variant of a 4 door saloon (like the 3 series coupe); or
(ii) 2 door, four seater cars.
The former is the origin of the 'coupe' name after all (being the french adjective for "cut"; as in a saloon that has been cut or shortened to a 2 door version).

In either case, even 2 door 'coupes' should have a boot rather than hatchback - think of the Fiat coupe as opposed to the VW Scirroco or Corrado. The latter are hatchbacks, not coupes.

Audi even played games in this regard years before VW started calling its 2/3 door hatchbacks "coupes', with its 2 door version of the 80 in the 1990s. That had a hatchback yet Audi called it the 'coupe'. I had one of these and loved it - in large part due to the practicality that the hatch gave it (it swallowed 2 mountain bikes whole), combined with the 2.6 V6 and more 'sporting' lines than the saloon. But it was never a true coupe.

[ewenm]

kambites said:

bencollins said:

Coupes are small nimble cars, on a shortened chassis.

That definition would remove the huge majority of coupes from the class.

You could class these larger vehicles as Fastbacks perhaps.

At the moent it seems the "Coupe" moniker encompasses everything from the Z4/370Z/Cayman to the Panamera/Rapide/Estoque with cars like this A5 in the middle. Some additional differentiation is needed.