Audi A7 Sportback launch

Audi last night (Monday, July 26) dropped another styling thunderbolt onto the hopes and budgets of its rivals by unveiling its slinky A7 Sportback five-door in Munich's modern art museum.

A size larger than its existing A5 Sportback and aimed squarely at Mercedes-Benz's CLS and BMW's 5 Series GT, the A7 will hit German dealerships in late September at €51,600.

A touch less than five metres long, the A7 has remained faithful to Audi's original concept car from the 2009 Detroit Motor Show, with its sporty-looking rear end seamlessly integrating into an instantly identifiable Audi character at the front.

Initially powered only by a choice of four V6 engines, the A7 range will have a 150kW diesel model delivering as little as 139 grams of CO2/km, while Audi's new, 220kW supercharged V6 petrol motor will hurl it to 100km/h in 5.6 seconds.

All four engines use thermal engine management, which stops coolant from circulating until the engines and transmissions are at the right temperature, start-stop technology, regenerative braking and Audi's new electro-mechanical power steering system, which it insists is good for a 0.3 litre/100km fuel saving.

Riding on 18- to 20-inch wheels, the A7 Sportback will be just 1.4 metres high, in spite of its limo-challenging 1.9-metre width, giving it the sporty on-road stance Audi promised with its concept car.

The designers have also utilised its enormous 2.91 metre wheelbase to bulk up the rear seat leg room and to give the car its stretched proportions and slippery aerodynamics (it boasts a 0.28 coefficient of drag).

The front-drive 3.0-litre TDI, with a combination of aluminium and steel body construction, weighs just 1695kg – a comparative featherweight for a car this size.

The interior, too, is spacious and flexible, with more than 535 litres of luggage space that can increase to 1390 when the rear seats are folded flat.

Like the recent A8 (and Jaguar's new XJ), the A7's interior also gets the wrap-around “horizon line”, which skirts the cabin's outskirts to give it a more definite visual edge.

Also like the A8, the A7's cabin can boast up to 15 Bang and Olufsen speakers, the finger-touch pad to control the MMI operating system, a pop-up screen and even an optional head-up display.

It also works with Google, connecting the car to the internet via your phone's Bluetooth system to give the satellite navigation Google Earth's picture database to make finding tricky locations even easier.

The new Audi A7 also gets the full weight of Audi's safety systems, including infra-red night vision to identify people and animals on the roadside at up to 300 metres, the pre-sense system which can brake the car to avoid collisions and a lane-assistance system to warn you if the next lane is already full.

It also combines its electronic brains with its engine, gearbox, active cruise control and steering systems to provide both an automatic parallel parking system and to do all the tiresome stop-start accelerating and braking for you in heavy traffic, allowing you just to steer. It also uses an automatic headlight control to gradually step its high-beam light cone back towards itself and out of the eyes of the oncoming traffic in order to maximize its driver's vision.

The initial lack of V8 engines also gives the A7 room to move inside the Audi range, staying out of the way of the freshly-launched A8 limousine on power and stepping clear of the A5 Sportwagon and the A6 sedan and wagon on sheer size.

It will be offered as both a front-wheel drive, with the power sent through the Multitronic (constantly-variable) transmission unit, or to all four wheels in the Quattro models, which have also upgraded to the new crown-gear system which recently debuted in the hard-hitting RS5.

While the front-drive models are still the most frugal, the crown-gear system for the centre differential can switch the drive between the front and rear axles very quickly and can swing between sending 70 percent of the torque to the front axle and 85 percent to the rear. And every point in between.

The entry point will be the front-drive, 3.0-litre TDI which manages to average 5.3 litres per 100km (44.38 US mpg) despite producing 150kW of power.

The entry-level petrol motor will be the 2.8-litre, direct-injection V6, with 150kW of power, peaking at 5250rpm, and 280Nm of torque in a plateau from 3000 to 5000rpm.

Coupled with the S-Tronic (double-clutch) seven-speed gearbox and Quattro all-wheel drive, the 2.8 moves the big A7 to 100km/h in 8.3 seconds.

If that doesn't sound as fast as the A7 looks, that's because the entry-level petrol engine's forte is economy, and it uses only 8.0 litres/100km (29.4 US mpg) and emits 187 grams of CO2/km.

Yet, for all of that, the range-topping supercharged V6 3.0-litre TFSI is only 0.2 litres/100km worse off in fuel consumption, but punches to 100km/h in 5.6 seconds, which is more like it.

The engine, which debuted just a week ago in the A8 long wheelbase limousine, holds its 220kW peak between 5250 and 6500rpm, plus punches in the mid-range with 440Nm between 2900 and 4500rpm. It is only mated with the seven-speed S-Tronic gearbox and only comes with Quattro all-wheel drive.

Besides the US and Middle East-friendly petrol engines, there are two versions of the much-revised 3.0-litre turbo diesel.

The most powerful of the two is the 180kW (245hp) version which, with 500Nm (368.8lb-ft), has the most torque in the entire A7 family. It's a Quattro-only machine and it sprints to 100km/h in 6.5 seconds – helped enormously by its torque peak arriving at a very lowly 1400rpm.

Even with all this crunching mid-range performance, which will make it an autobahn terror in its native Germany, it averages just 6.0 litres/100km (US 39.2mpg), which isn't much worse than its 150kW, front-drive turbo-diesel sibling.

A curious case, this, because it is listed as having 400Nm of torque in front-drive form, but 450Nm if you order it with all-wheel drive, when it will run to 100km/h in 8.1 seconds.

It runs all this with a strut-style front suspension and a sophisticated multi-link rear end, though Audi can drop the ride height by 10mm if you ask nicely and it can also fit the car with constantly adjustable air suspension on all four corners.

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