The wraps have been pulled off Audi’s new A5 Sportback. The hatch-totin’ sedan basically combines an A4 wagon and an A5 coupe with the roofline of an upside-down whale, while offering little of those things’ respective practicality, sexiness, or baleen.
Enough Engines to Make Our Heads Spin
The A4-based car won’t be coming to America, but Europeans have six engines to choose from at launch, all of them direct-injected, and all of them turbocharged. Three TDI diesels are on offer: a 2.0-liter four-cylinder making 170 hp and 258 lb-ft of torque, a 2.7-liter V-6 good for 190 hp and 295 lb-ft, and a 3.0-liter V-6 that produces 240 hp and a mouth-watering 369 lb-ft. Acceleration to 62 mph is claimed at 8.7 seconds, 8.2 seconds, and 6.1 seconds, respectively.
There are gasoline engines on tap, too, including the ubiquitous VW Group 2.0-liter turbo four—it comes in 180-hp/236-lb-ft or 211-hp/258-lb-ft flavors—and a 3.2-liter V-6 rated at 265 hp and 243 lb-ft. Zero to 62 mph takes 6.6 seconds with the two most powerful motors, according to Audi.
The assortment of engines are bolted to either a six-speed manual, Audi’s Multitronic CVT, or the seven-speed S tronic double-clutch gearbox, but the permutations are myriad enough to give us headaches—and that’s not even factoring in the front-wheel-drive and Quattro all-wheel-drive variations—so we won’t go into it here. If we didn’t find it confusing enough, Audi also says it plans to offer a further three engines in the car, including a less-powerful version of the 2.0 TDI and a 1.8-liter gas engine, the latter to serve as an entry-level model that will be offered only with front-wheel drive and a manual gearbox.
The top-spec diesel and gas V-6s can be outfitted with Audi’s so-called “sport differential,” which we’ve sampled in the 2010 S4. It can send up to 100 percent of available torque to the outside rear wheel to mitigate understeer. It works similarly to torque-vectoring systems from Acura and BMW, and has proved effective when we’ve driven cars so equipped.
Styling’s the Thing
Of course, the powertrains are similar to those found in other Audis—it’s the A5 Sportback’s styling which is going to attract buyers. The car is certainly handsome, but we don’t find it completely successful, and we think there are better looking cars even in Audi’s own showroom, namely the A4 sedan and A5 coupe. Heck, even the long-in-the-tooth Mercedes-Benz CLS-class, which started all this “four-door coupe” nonsense, is a more successful take on the body style. Even so, it’s clear that the top-spec A5 Sportbacks, outfitted with S-line body kits and big, 20-inch wheels, will carry the day style-wise, since the lesser models seem pretty dowdy in comparison. We do admit that we’re basing our judgments on pictures; it’s possible the car will prove more mouth-watering in person.
Audi says it “did not design the Sportback to be a niche model,” and that it expects the car to sell in high volumes when it reaches European dealers in September. German pricing ranges from €33,650 (roughly $47,000) for a 2.0-liter gas model to €47,950 (about $67,500) for a top-spec TDI with Quattro. The prices basically fall in line with those of the A5 coupe and A4 Avant in Germany.
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