SPY PICS: Next-generation Audi Q3 nears launch

These most recent spy photos give us a thoroughly decent look at Audi's next-generation Q3 SUV, which is due for its European launch later this year, testing on Spanish public roads in close-to-production trim.

The spy pics show a clean, typically-Audi look for the next Q3, which, though it barely varies from the current model in terms of styling cues, is actually all-new.

With looks a cut above the current model's, the new Q3 boasts enhanced wheel arches for a wider, more aggressive look and the new trapezoidal corporate grille. A revised rear end pushes the outer edge of the taillights to the rear flanks, rather than incorporating them in the apparently wider, wrap-around tailgate that hints at – but doesn't actually deliver – a super-wide opening to the boot.

As reported in a previously-published spy-pic story in August 2017, the second-gen Audi Q3 will adopt the ubiquitous MQB platform found across the Audi/Volkswagen range. That will make the new Q3 lighter in weight and fractionally bigger overall. The wheelbase will increase from 2603mm to 2652mm, the length from 4388mm to 4448mm and the width from 1831mm to 1881mm.

By comparison, the second-generation Volkswagen Tiguan measures 4486mm long, for a 2681mm wheelbase, and 1839mm in width. Like the Tiguan, which quotes 1655 litres of boot space with the seats folded flat, the Q3 is expected to grow in this dimension as well.

The next-gen Q3 is also expected to offer a version of Audi's "virtual cockpit" instrument panel, and will locate its viewing screen lower in the dash, rather than as a tablet-style popup near the base of the windscreen.

As well as a range of four-cylinder petrol and diesel engines, plug-in hybrid versions are also likely, as is a thundering RS Q3 powered by Audi's new five-cylinder turbo-petrol engine that produces 295kW – up from the current model's 270kW.