I’m very fond of the German inclination to be uber-rational and uber-literal at all times. Like when they invent new words for complex things no one has ever bothered to label before.
Schadenfreude, for instance: it’s German, it’s real and it means finding pleasure in the misfortune of others.
Schaden means damage, freude means joy. It’s a word as clinically engineered as the autobahn. The fact that the word needed to be created in the first place is perhaps a little odd (there must be a lot of Schadenfreude in the fatherland) but unashamedly, thanks to the Germans, it now exists.
So too with the latest vehicle Audi has added to its product armoury, something it likes to call the A5 Sportback. Defined Germanically: it’s a car for someone who wants the performance of a sporty coupé with the practicality of a station wagon and the stately presence of a luxury sedan. Hence the name A5 Sportback. It’s an A5, which is “sporty” and has a new “back”. The translation is literal and lacking in humour but so wonderfully German.
My initial concerns, as always with cars that seem cobbled together from several different models — such as the BMW 5-Series GT, the VW CC, the Merc CLS and X6 — is that they’re rubbish cars and they’re ugly. These cars often feel as though they don’t have a totality about them; they feel burdened by the mind-set of compromise.
The Audi A5 Sportback seems a little different though.
First of all, and I know aesthetics is always a subjective matter, it really looks sumptuous in the metal. Though the girth of the back end can look ungainly, the boot itself is very elegantly designed and it’s a very practical hatchback with the hinges at the top of the rear window. A lot of time was spent trying to accentuate the width and lowness of the car, hence the curvaceous bonnet and front flanks.
Audi has a design studio in Santa Monica and you can’t help but sense the West Coastness in this car; with its pillarless windows front and rear it’s like it jumped straight off the sketch pad and on to the highway. It does have a totality about it and, interestingly, head designer Marcus Gleitz admitted that the Sportback was inspired by the iPhone.
For the A5 Sportback to prove its worth, however, it needs to deliver a sporty drive. And the big four-seater sedan does so with little fuss although athletic is the word that comes to mind ahead of sporty.
To provide the sportiness it comes with firm suspension that does the business when you engage in some rapid driving. But it is quite unsettling over the regular obstacles you’ll encounter in day-to-day driving. The A5’s iridescent personality will be well served with Audi’s Drive Select option, which stiffens and softens the suspension with the flick of a button. None of the cars driven at launch was fitted with this optional extra, but that would also help the steering, which felt benign when you wanted a little responsiveness in the corners.
So it’s not an out-and-out sports coupé by any stretch, but it does carry impressive cross-country pace. Both the V6 petrol (195kW) and V6 turbo-diesel (176kW) can shift to 100kp/h in less then seven seconds. Both have Quattro all-wheel drive and Audi’s very competent automatic gearbox.
Prices start at R414 500 for the entry-level 2,0-litre turbo (155kW), with the V6 petrol coming in at R503 500 and the V6 TDI at R511 500. A special mention must be made of the 3,0-litre TDI that revs nice and high, has long legs on the highway and is whisper quiet at slow speeds.
Overall the Audi A5 Sportback does manage to tick all the boxes it set out to do. And with its considered design it ends up being more than just a cobbled-together Quasimodo of a car. It’s unique and, despite the claims of added practicality, it’s a car that will resonate with customers — it’s a car they’ll want rather than need.