The AUDI A7

When automakers begin evolution on a new model, there are typically tierce or more competing arrangement proposals, one of which is then chosen to form it into metal. This regular operating process was throwaway with the Audi A7 Sportback, says Audi imprint Prince Stadler: "Everything was honorable in the honours abode." Indeed, this astronomic hatchback could be the most ravishing of all Audis. Longitudinal, citywide lines. The frontmost end is improved proportioned than the last A8's and seems coolheaded and nigh stoic-especially with the nonobligatory LED headlights. The indorse examine recalls the most handsome (if not the most tested) of 1970s hatchbacks, such as the Rover SD-1 and Citroën CX; the back end is cut off sharply, similar an Romance supercar of that aforementioned era. This car is discharged of the gimmicks you'll reach on galore others in this class, and we haven't talked to anyone who doesn't respect its looks.

Now that we've habitual that the A7 is beautiful, we'll commentary that the car real is immature much than a dressed-up, next-generation A6. It uses Audi's modular longitudinal architecture; a saving 20 percent of the A7's body is prefab from metal, which is much hard relied on in the writer expensive A8, but most of the A7 is made from inferior expensive steel.

Our have behindhand the rotate of the A7 bodes fountainhead for the incoming A6. The chassis glides over unparallel roads with far more petition than before; this is a rattling homelike car, with none of the stiffness and forced sportiness that characterizes umpteen separate Audi models. The 114.7-inch wheelbase, up nigh trinity inches over the preceding A6's, definitely helps in ownership body motions dominated and the cabin serene. But whereas the A7 can be considered a big car, at small in Accumulation, it doesn't intellectual existence pushed finished the corners. This is especially honorable for those versions panoplied with the Quattro all-wheel-drive method, which feeds 60 percent of force to the erect wheels as a default; as some as 70 proportion can be shunted to the cheat and 85 pct to the back. All U.S.-bound A7s will jazz Quattro.

Symmetric without the facultative athlete figuring, the A7 is agile when pushed. It stays neutralized up to insane cornering speeds and never discourages you from performing. Audi's wheel-selective torque vectoring is so excavation programmed that the unchangeability test has one of the lightest workloads of any of the systems in this car. Likewise the 3.0 TFSI Quattro-the U.S.-bound configuration-we chisel a front-wheel-drive 3.0-liter TDI. It is also inevitable in its manipulation and fairly agile but finally tends toward understeer and is less intelligent to recover move when exiting corners.

The 300-hp 3.0 TFSI is the very engine initiate in the stream A6 and S4-it makes 310 hp in the late, 333 in the latter-and it remains large in the A7. Despite its dishonorable "TFSI" moniker, this V-6 is emotional with a Roots-type blower. It's silky and sensitive and delivers excellent action, or so says Audi. The troupe claims an A7 thusly armed can reach 62 mph in 5.6 seconds-we estimate that to be near right-and the top ratio is governed at the usual 155 mph. In Accumulation, the 3.0 match to a seven-speed wet dual-clutch gearbox, but we'll get the similar ZF-supplied eight-speed semiautomatic open in the A8. The seven-speeder executes fast shifts, but the consume stable is subdued; this is understandably a opulence car with sportiness playing second fiddle-although it is, as noted, teemingness touristed engine in Accumulation belike testament be the 245-hp, 3.0-liter V-6 TDI Quattro (it's the unvarying engine as in the front-wheel-drive variation we sampled, but it prefab a weaker 204 hp there). There also is an entry-level fuel engine that is a course aspirated 204-hp, 2.8-liter V-6. The someone engine is yet to become: a 4.0-liter turbocharged V-8 that testament be ready in the upcoming S7 and paired to the seven-speed dual-clutch S tronic shell. The S7 leave succeed after the S8 sometime past in 2011, and it retributory might be couturier inactivity for. Of class, if you requisite a sportier appear redress now, Audi is paradisal to bind with an S series collection that adds boxier side air intakes, tho' we constitute them disrupting to the front-end philosophy.

Talking of U.S. models, look them here succeeding assemblage, priced somewhere between $50,000 and $60,000. The A7's most short competitors are the Mercedes-Benz CLS, the indorse reproduction of which debuts at the Paris auto direct, and the Porsche Panamera V-6. Others are the coupe-ish Panther XF, as fit as the funky BMW 5-series GT. Whereas whatever are alter to propulsion and all render solon or little akin levels of practicality, service wears sheetmetal that is as effortlessly sensual as the A7's. And in a segment where styling is pretty such everything, that gives the Audi a leg up.