Electric blue
Above: The Audi A5
Above: The best-looking Audi for ten years
Above: Minimalist yet comfortable interior
Above: .
Above: .
Audis, bless them, have never really been much to look at. While they’ve always been technically brilliant, the bodywork of the car has always seemed like an afterthought, and the result has often looked like they borrowed some spare straight lines from Volvo on Friday afternoon. This was all changed a few years ago with the TT, and here we have its grown-up brother – enter the Audi A5.
Walter da Silva, Audi’s Italian head of design and past crafter of Alfa Romeos, reckons the A5 is the most beautiful car he’s ever penned and, to be fair to him, it’s a good-looking machine.
It's all in the look
Certainly, it looks less like it was designed with a geometry set than many Audis, and this is important. You see, you don’t buy a coupé because you want to put kids in the back, or carry lots of shopping, or tow a boat somewhere. You buy a coupé because it’s knuckle-bitingly beautiful, because you can’t take your eyes off it and because you know, if you walk away from it without handing over a cheque, that your life will forever be filled with regret.
While the A5 probably won’t be causing too many sleepless nights, it is without a doubt the prettiest car to roll out of the Ingolstadt factory for a long time.
With classic coupé proportions (long bonnet, short overhangs, etc), the A5 sits low and looks taut and muscular, and with the typical Audi treatment of making the front look as mean as possible, it does have presence.
The A5 is the prettiest car to roll out of Ingolstadt for a long time
It’s wide, too – wider than the next A4 will be, and optioning sports suspension will push the ride height down by 20mm, with stiffer spring settings and shock absorbers. This is largely unnecessary, however, especially if you value your fillings.
Optimistically billed as a four seater, no amount of wavy lines down its waistline are going to disguise the fact that the A5 is a fairly big car. However, a quick glance inside confirms that the rear seats are best left to kids and other people whose comfort is irrelevant – blame the long-floored boot for this. Buyers of the A5 are more likely to be transporting golf clubs instead of children, so I suppose the boot size needs to be measured in this all-important increment; sets of golf clubs. Unfortunately I have no idea how big a set of golf clubs is, or even whether they come in a set, but I’m fairly certain you could take a couple of mates golfing in an A5 and nobody would have to mime.
The lack of space for rear passengers is, however, made up for in the front. Firm, well-supported seats are electronically adjustable, and finding a comfortable driving position is fine regardless of height or build.
Inside, the materials and the way they have all been bolted together exude quality and expense, from the solid, chunky steering wheel to the smallest switchgear. You’d expect build quality from Audi to be second to none, and the A5 certainly doesn’t disappoint - if I had to choose somewhere to be in the event of an earthquake, ‘in an Audi’ would be number two, just below ‘somewhere else, a long way away.’
Minimum of fuss
The interior is mercifully unfussy and minimalist, which is a refreshing change from many modern cars in which they leave one with the overwhelming impression that there are potentially buttons to control the buttons.
Audi’s multi-media interface controls most of the interior comfort settings, and it’s much more logical and easier to use than BMW’s iDrive system, and utilises a dash-mounted screen.
The now ever-popular electronic parking brake means you spend a lot of time reaching for a handbrake that isn’t there, and although it does feature an option that assists you on a hill start, (for those who managed to pass their driving tests with little or no clutch control) it’s still a solution to a problem that, like the handbrake it replaces, doesn’t exist.
Standard kit is pretty good too. All A5s have satellite navigation as standard, excellent air conditioning, rear parking sensors, leather upholstery, a 10-speaker audio system and a multi-function steering wheel.
The A5 starts at £31,640 for the 2.7 TDI, rising to £39,825 for the top-of-the-range (for now) S5. Go mad with the options list however, and the sky really is the limit.
Sea of colour
There are more colours of cow to trim your seats in than you thought would be possible, televisions, voice control systems and interior-lighting packages.
Audi will even paint your car any colour you want. Any colour at all, whether it’s the colour of your living room or your cat. It’s a £4,000 option, but hey – who said exclusivity would be cheap?
Push the key into the slot on the dash, remember to release the electronic parking brake, and you’re off in near silence. Special commendation goes to how well the frameless doors seal against the body of the car – at any speed it’s near silent and it’s a testament to the thought and quality Audi is putting into its cars.
The A5’s driving dynamics are tuned heavily toward pleasing existing Audi owners who will be familiar with the car’s feel, and unusually, less toward trying to tempt owners away from rivals like BMW.
Audi will paint your car any colour you want, whether it’s the colour of your living room or your cat.
This could be a good or a bad thing, depending on what you’re used to and what you want. As a driver, you feel somewhat detached from the experience; from Audi’s point of view, the A5 obviously needs to fit in with the rest of the range, but it’s this reluctance to build a car which can really dance that will put off potential buyers new to the brand.
It’s difficult to tell what causes this – the steering is more accurate than in Audi’s past, and the new chassis is less nose-heavy, but the experience is still one of non-communication with the road.
The engines in the A5s are still mounted longitudinally (making the engineering of the 4WD Quattro version easier), but they are no longer so far ahead of the front wheels, which helps tidy up the handling characteristics somewhat, but not quite enough.
It’s certainly safe through the bends – the nose will still run wide if you push it into a corner, but BMW drivers hoping to break the tail loose by lifting off will be disappointed; there’ll be no such hooliganism here.
Choose wisely
Obviously, your choice of engine will alter the driving dynamics considerably. Putting the performance aside for a minute, the engines currently offered in the A5 all have different weight characteristics, which will affect the way it handles. The 3.2 multitronic is the lightest version of the car, and the most agile, while the S5, with its big V8, will feel heavier – it’s worth thinking about instead of just going for the biggest engine you can afford.
Generally, the 240bhp 3.0 TDI Quattro is going to offer the best combination of performance and fuel economy. With the manual transmission, you need to remember it’s redlined at under 5,000rpm, because with 0-62 taking 5.9 seconds in first and second that red line comes up pretty quickly. A 5,000rpm redline is high for a big diesel, but it can still catch you out if you’re used to a high-revving petrol engine.
The 3.0 TDI is a peach of a drivetrain though, and even has a pleasing large-machinery-type roar. Its low-down pull is a surprise every time you experience it, and the 0-62 dash feels every bit as rapid as the numbers suggest.
Other engines on offer include a 2.7 diesel, a 3.2 petrol and the ripsnorting 4.2 V8 S5, the latter capable of 0-62 in a startling 5.1 seconds, but the most impressive all-rounder has to be the 3.0 TDI.
There are very few cars in which I think an automatic gearbox improves the experience, but I’d be very tempted to spend the extra £1,450 and option the seven-speed multitronic gearbox. It’s only available on the non-Quattro models, but because the A5’s dynamics are tuned more towards relaxed touring rather than hustling the car through sweeping A-roads, swapping cogs manually is a relatively fruitless and unrewarding exercise.
Overall, the A5 is an excellent car.
It’s build to withstand anything you can throw at it, it handles safely and competently and will sweep you from home to the golf club quickly, quietly and with a minimum of fuss. It hasn’t been built to be an involving drivers’ car, so it’s not going to stir your senses or encourage you to drop a gear and go for that sweeping left hander. But if you just sit back and enjoy the ride, it won’t matter.
The Audi A5
ENGINE: 3.0 TDI V6
PERFORMANCE: 0-60 - 5.9sec, 155mph
ECONOMY: 39.2 combined
PRICE: from £32,600
WE LIKE: Build, svelte looks
WE DON’T LIKE: Uninvolving drive
VERDICT: Extremely capable and built like a tank. Unlikely to tempt BMW owners though
SHOOT LOCATION: Dunorlan Park, Tunbridge Wells