Audi A7 Sportback 2018 Review

There’s a point along the new Audi A7 Sportback’s body where the design-is-in-charge jig is up. That point is at the intersection of the rear door’s shutline and the rear door’s window line. The two should create a seamless, straight line.

Except they don’t. There’s about a 3cm dogleg between them. The Audi design team explains it was forced on them by the location of the rear seat-belt anchor points and that it had to leave space so the frameless rear windows could wind down into the doors.

Whatever the reason, it’s the sort of thing that didn’t happen on the last A7. That was a car that stood shamelessly proud of the rest of the range, incorporating curved light catchers when the rest of the family became rolling monuments to Audi’s ability to press metal into crisper and pointier shapes than anybody else.

But this car is no longer the Audi dominated by its designers. It has evolved from an Audi built to please its sketchers to an Audi that’s fallen in line with the system.

Still, the original A7 found 250,000 buyers and forced BMW to join in, which it did with the spectacular own-goal of the 5 Series Gran Turismo, then the 6 Series Gran Coupe. Two cars to combat one Audi.

The A7’s five-door liftback layout keeps it a bit aloof from Benz’s own design leader, the CLS, but they are conceptually similar.

Both cars are a second, design-driven bite at the same mechanical cherry, with the A7 essentially a rebodied (next-generation) A6 with a sportier feel, while the CLS is a rebodied E-Class for people who feel younger than 65.

The new A7 is, by just about any measure, a better car than its predecessor, yet it doesn’t quite have the same on-road presence, especially from the rear three-quarter view.

The creases on its body now seem to fit more logically into the Audi language – a bit more plug-and-play into the family system – which makes it feel less unique and less of a design statement than it did before.

Still, take that away and you’re left with a near-perfect car. Brilliant for long distances, it’s also good in town and can be optioned up to park itself or, when the law allows, drive itself with Level 3 autonomy on highways.

It’s heavily based on the A8, which arrived late last year in Europe, but takes the limousine’s mechanical layout and offers even more chassis options.

About 17cm shorter than the A8, it shares the same 2926mm wheelbase as the next A6 and most of its dash design and technology.

It will score 48-volt mild-hybrid power as standard equipment on all of its petrol-powered cars, rear-wheel steering as an option, airbag suspension as an option and its biggest wheel-and-tyre package is now 21 inches instead of 20.

When it arrives in June, it will definitely carry two engines: the 3.0-litre 250kW petrol V6 and the 650Nm 3.0-litre V6 turbo-diesel, both of which we tested in South Africa.

There will be others, too; some sooner, some later. A 4.0-litre biturbo V8 S7 is confirmed, as is an RS 7. There will be other diesels in Europe, too, including a 2.0-litre four-cylinder that Australia won’t take.

It starts life as a chassis with steel springs and a fixed damper rate, rises in price to a combination of steel springs and dynamic variable dampers and finishes here, with our test cars and their constantly variable air springs and constantly variable dampers.

Our cars both had all-wheel drive, both had sport differentials, and both used the electronically controlled rear-wheel steering. The system effectively shortens the wheelbase at low speed and lengthens it in high-speed corners for added stability by turning the same direction as the front wheels at low speed and the opposite direction at high speed.

If you like spending extra money, Audi always encourages you to stop off at its headlight shop, where you can take in the standard LED units, Matrix LED versions or full laser jobbies.

Audi claims it sets new benchmarks for noise suppression, refinement and ride comfort. It’s right, right again and the jury’s out on the last part.

There is acoustic, double-glazing on every see-through surface, even the free-standing frameless side windows. The rear-end is much more immune to the intrusions from chunky or coarse-chip road surfaces.

It’s astonishingly quiet, especially at cruising speeds and the refinement from every part of the rolling chassis is unmistakeable. The car feels like it’s just easing along any surface, any time, with no apparent effort, even when the speedo suggests there ought to be plenty of obvious effort.

But we aren’t so sure of the ride quality. The roads around Capetown aren’t noted for their billiard-table smoothness, so that may be the core issue.

Still, there were roads where, at low speed, we weren’t convinced that it waltzed over shoddy surfaces with the aplomb it should have.

When the roads were at their worst, with a sustained stretch of small, patchwork imperfections, the front-end felt more than firm, though the perfectionist body control never wavered.

It became more uncomfortable than we thought it should have, riding on its 20-inch wheels and tyres, but then we’d find bumps that we also thought should have been uncomfortable and... they weren’t.

Perhaps it was just the bumps in series, rather than one-off hits that were less than perfect. Perhaps the roads were so bad any car would have suffered across them.

The boys will have to check again locally in June.
The handling, though, felt more than capable. It’s not a sports car. Never was. Its focus is grand touring with a slightly sporty bent, and so it proved.

Point it at a corner and the A7 will just bite at the front, bite again at the back and go until the corners are gone. It’s almost impossible, in a sane world, to approach its limits of grip.

It will be by accident or surprise if and when most people do find its limits, and then the Audi will cover itself in glory and effectively hide the drivers’ error from the passengers.

No, the steering isn’t like a Cayman’s (but, then, neither is the Cayman anymore), though it’s reasonably good at communication. And what it usually communicates is “Yeah, sure, plenty more left up here, boss”.

There just doesn’t seem to be a way to upset the Audi’s composure in real life. Tightening radius bends, corners over crests when everything is light, bumps on a high-speed apex... Nothing concerns it, so nothing concerns its drivers. Or its passengers.

You just sit in near silence while this 4969mm-long machine eats miles without trying.

When Level 3 autonomous driving becomes legal, it will eat even more miles without trying. It’s pre-engineered for Level 3 self-driving, so it can be ordered with up to five cameras, five radar sensors, 12 ultra-sonic sensors and a laser LiDar scanner, networked via a zFas controller (beneath the front passenger seat) that manages its 39 driver assistance systems.

The A7’s impression of calm, effortless pace is abetted by a cabin with fewer buttons than the average business shirt.

Inside, there is a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster (or Virtual Cockpit in Audi-speak) as standard equipment, combined with a 10.1-inch infotainment screen that responds to touch, voice or written command and have haptic feedback.

And there’s a full-colour head-up display. Beneath the main infotainment screen is a third digital touch-screen that does double duty as the ventilation control panel and the writing pad to give the car instructions.

Or, like we did, you just push the voice-command button on the steering wheel and say “I’m cold” and it will ask what temperature you’d prefer. You tell it, it changes it. Done. No smudge marks on all that beautiful black surfacing.

It uses all the same connectivity as the A8, complete with a permanent 4G connection and Car-to-X and traffic sign services to use swarm intelligence for real-time traffic information.

If you think that’s complex, up to seven drivers can store up to setup parameters, and there are more than 400 parameters to set, so...

It uses a short, flat-topped gear selector (again, similar to the one in the A8), which is largely designed for drivers to rest their wrists on while they’re writing on the lower touch-screen.

The seats are all ventilated and have heating and massage functions, while the rear of the cabin can be configured with either two individual seats or a 2+1 set-up, both of which boast 20mm more legroom despite the slight reduction in the car’s overall length.

The tailgate still hinges from the roof, giving easy access to its 535-litre luggage area. Drop the rear seats and this can rise to 1390 litres, with Audi boasting it can now hold two golf bags horizontally.

It is a terrific place to spend time, with comfortable seats and a wide array of adjustment, while the rear seats deliver plenty of foot, leg and headroom, even with its sloping roofline.

It’s as quiet in the back as it is in the front (which is a boast the old car couldn’t make, with its rear-suspension noise intrusion) and it’s every bit as comfortable.

The petrol engine is probably the pick of the two launch motors. That’s largely because while both engines were good, the added refinement from the petrol engine and the addition of mild-hybrid power make its responses crisper and its intrusions into the cabin’s civility less frequent or pronounced.

The engines use a belt-alternator starter system to regenerate energy to a lithium-ion battery, which can be then used later to punch a 12kW power boost into the engine’s crankshaft under acceleration. And brake and repeat.

It can also go into a freewheeling coast mode between 55km/h and 160km/h to save energy and lower its fuel consumption.

The V6 delivers 250kW and 500Nm, letting the big coupe burst to 100km/h in 5.3 seconds, while using 6.8L/100km (154g/km of CO2) on the NEDC test cycle.

Its standard powertrain comes with a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission and all-wheel drive, which only cranks up the rear wheels on demand.

The mighty all-wheel drive quattro system of the old car has been reduced to a hang-on system. Not that you notice. All you notice from the driver’s seat is that it has grip and it has go and you never seem to be short of either.

The engine surges seamlessly on hard acceleration, throwing the liftback at gaps in the traffic with a disdain for a weight figure that has actually risen by between 10 and 20kg (which Audi blames mostly on the addition of the mild-hybrid system, which it claims is worth 0.7L/100km on the combined fuel-consumption cycle).

It revs cheerfully, too, even if the best of its work is done in the thicker part of the torque curve.

The grown-up part is that it can now fiddle with the start-stop at up to 22km/h, so it switches the engine off coming up to red lights, for example, and instead just regenerates energy for the mild-hybrid’s next burst of effort.

It can do that because it’s the smoothest on-off switching for an engine we’ve found with idle-stop. The diesel is a little clunkier, but still barely noticeable.

The petrol V6 also comes with a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, which isn’t usually a high-mileage driver’s first choice, but it’s clean and quick. Light throttle shifting in Dynamic mode can trick it into a touch of harshness now and again, but it’s otherwise an invisible partner.

If it’s a truly invisible transmission you want, you’ll have to switch to the 3.0-litre TDI and its eight-speed torque-converter auto, which is something a bit special.

Whatever price you pay in additional coarseness from the diesel (and it isn’t a big fee) is made up for every time it shifts to another gear, particularly on its downshifts.

But diesel is still something of a dirty word, with European cities talking about bans and new car market share plummeting and it’s mostly because of Audi’s development work. Do everyone a favour and take the petrol engine instead.

2018 Audi A7 55 TFSI quattro S tronic pricing and specifications:
Price: TBC
On sale: June
Engine: 3.0-litre turbo-petrol mid-hybrid V6
Output: 250kW/500Nm
Transmission: Seven-speed dual-clutch
Fuel: 7.1L/100km
CO2: 161g/km
Safety rating: TBC