When Audi finally killed off the R8, we lost something more than the company’s highest-performing car — we lost its prettiest design. Since then, we’ve only had the E-Tron GT as the Pretty Audi, but even that lost its luster with the most recent redesign. Now, though, there’s finally a truly good-looking car back in the Audi stable: The new Q5.
We can all complain about the proliferation of midsize crossovers as the Default Vehicle, but it does seem to mean one thing for their styling: Designers prioritize them when developing corporate styling languages. The proportions of Audi’s front end have always been a little off, but here — on the midsize Q5 — they finally all line up.
The DRLs follow the body line from the front door through the fender to the front bumper, the grilles are all reasonably-sized relative to the front end. The wheels are proportional, the rear window’s rake flows neatly into the tail lights that stick out from the hatch. Audi’s designers are truly working at full power here, making a midsize crossover that actually, genuinely, looks good.
Unfortunately, those looks are displayed through these weird photos that are besieged by vignetting in the colors of both press cars, making them both hard to clearly see due to the dim lighting and hard to parse due to blending in with the overlay. Audi’s designers may be at their peak here, but the company’s photographers are… somewhere else.
Inside, the Q5 doesn’t quite live up to the standard of beauty set by the exterior, but it seems a fine enough place to spend your time. The cockpit is fully geared toward the driver, all facing inward towards that front seat like a Corvette, save for a single screen off on the passenger side. There are rows of LED lighting, soft-touch materials nearly all the way up the doors, and a surface to rest your hand on beneath the touch screen so you’re not hovering as you drive along a bumpy road. Thanks, Audi.
The steering wheel buttons, however, look flat enough that they may be capacitive. We won’t know for sure how easy they are to accidentally activate without driving the car, but it’s a point to watch out for. This interior also runs the risk of your front-seat passenger easily changing the radio station you’re playing, which is a crime on par with much laid out in the Geneva Conventions.
For specs, the Q5 gets a two-liter four-cylinder making 268 horsepower while the SQ5 gets a three-liter six-cylinder making 362. Both variants deliver that power through a 7-speed dual-clutch, out to a Quattro all-wheel-drive system. Audi also helpfully reminds prospective buyers that the company’s big visual selling point — its “adaptive matrix LED headlights” — are not legal in the U.S., and will simply be regular headlights until our regulations change.
Details like fuel economy haven’t yet been released for the U.S. market, but Audi promises numbers for the car “closer to the U.S. on-sale date.” The same goes for price, though the outgoing car starts at $43,500. Expect some jump from that number, accounting for just how pretty the new car is, but nothing extreme.
