Audi A5 Sportback first drive October 2009
Audi A5 Sportback on sale
Even though nobody asked for it, Audi has added a five-door model to its luxurious A5 line-up. Will this mark the beginning of a trend towards well-appointed hatchbacks or will buyers stick with their traditional oppulent saloons?
Meet the A5 Sportback
Audi's A5 Sportback retains the sleek lines of its coupe cousin
So you want the cachet and sweeping styling of a coupe, but can’t bear to give up the practicality of your roomy family hatch? Worry no more, as part of Audi’s ever expanding range, the German carmaker has introduced a five-door hatch version of its sleek A5 coupe.
According to Audi, the A5 Sportback combines the style of a coupe with the space of a saloon and the practicality of an estate. And anyone who’s feeling a little dazed by the sheer volume of Audi models on offer will be relieved to hear that this 10th variation on a theme (car platform) completes Audi’s mid-sized line-up. It also takes the number of models offered to a grand total of 33, more than doubled over the past decade.
Advantage A5 Sportback
As a car that fits into quite a few niches, the Sportback can claim contrasting advantages. Extra centimetres on its roofline give a decent amount of headroom for two adults in the back, while an extra 86cm in length over the A5 coupe is put to good use, providing a decent amount of rear legroom as well as a capacious boot.
In spite of this the Sportback retains its coupe styling – an impressive 0.29 drag coefficient testifies to this – so there are no significant slumps in mpg or CO2 emissions. The latter start at 137g/km in the 167bhp 2.0 TDI turbodiesel, the model billed to be the best seller and the only version to be offered with a manual gearbox rather than Audi’s S-tronic auto as standard. Although impressive for a car of this size, this figure doesn’t quite match the 130g/km figure of BMW’s 318d.
A stop-start engine system (fitted to the manual 2.0 TDI) helps boost fuel economy in city driving. But once again, even though the Sportback’s average claim of 54mpg for the 2.0 TDI sounds highly frugal, it’s trumped by BMW’s 318d with 60mpg.
The 2.0 TDI is one of four engines that will be offered initially. There’s also a 208bhp TFSI turbo petrol, plus a pair of V6s: a 236bhp 3.0 TDi and a 261bhp 3.2 FSI petrol. More engine options will follow in 2010.
Wider and taller than the A5 coupe, the Sportback has plenty of space for four adults
A5 Sportback on the road
Performance from this quartet looks good on paper: the smaller engines reach 62mph in around eight seconds and the V6s, just over six. However, in practise the power delivery is not as sparkling as the Sportback name suggests – if you’re after an overtly sporty drive you may want to consider a BMW instead.
For the best handling, splash out on the pricier S-line trim level, which comes with a standard electronic differential and tweaked suspension.
Both diesel models are front-wheel drive, while the petrols come with Audi’s quattro all-wheel-drive set-up. Whichever model you choose, ride and handling aren’t class leading, with the Audi’s tendency show up flaws in the road leaving it lagging behind the Mercedes C-class and BMW 3 Series.
Perhaps that’s because the A5 Sportback’s raison d’etre is different from the BMW. A capacious, luxury holdall, it’s aimed at drivers who value design over out-and-out performance. Consider it as a long distance cruiser and the Sportback starts to show its true appeal.
A5 Sportback design
Acres of luggage space make the Audi A5 Sportback a useful long distance tourer
Although the A5 Sportback, like the A5 coupe, is based on the same platform as the Audi A4, it is a far more luxurious proposition. The cabin is sumptuously appointed in all bar the base Standard trim level, which we’d avoid as it doesn’t provide leather seats or rear parking sensors.
All SE versions benefit from a driver information system and an improved stereo, while six-cylinder SE cars add automatic headlights and windscreen wipers and three-zone climate control.
Moving up to S-line trim provides xenon headlights, sports suspension and paddle gear shift levers on the inside, plus slightly different exterior styling to differentiate it from the rest of the range.
As with other Audi models, the interior design is well thought out, with switches and controls that fall easily to hand. Among the features aimed at making the car as effortless as possible to live with is a clever rear tailgate design that gives easier access to the long boot.
Most importantly for this A5 variant is its impressive luggage capacity – the same as that of the A4 saloon with the rear seats in place and 25 litres up on the A5 coupe. Fold those seats flat and you get a whopping 980 litres of room – 18 litres more than the A4 saloon and 151 litres more than its coupe brother.
Owning an A5 Sportback
Leather is standard in all bar the base model, and the A5 Sportback's cabin is well appointed
As we’ve come to expect from Audi, the Sportback has the full complement of safety equipment and scores five stars for occupant protection in the EuroNCAP tests.
However, reliability could be a concern, as the existing A5 coupe and convertible models didn’t fare very well in the 2009 Which? Car reliability survey. In fact, the A5 was the worst scoring new sports coupe in the survey. So we’ll have to wait and see if this A5 fares better with owners.
The A5 Sportback doesn’t have any direct rivals yet, but there are rumours that BMW is working on a 3 Series-sized GT (Gran Turismo) to follow on from the 5 Series GT, so perhaps there’s method in Audi’s apparent madness of launching a car nobody actually asked for. Maybe the day of the luxury saloon has passed, and buyers will instead plump for luxury hatchbacks like the Sportback.
The prices will help to tempt them into A5 ownership, ranging from £25,440 to £36,220, they pitch the Sportback as the entry-level model in Audi's burgeoning A5 range.
The A5 Sportback is on sale now.
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