Driving the new Audi A7 Sportback

The second generation of Audi’s elegant grand tourer has plenty to live up to, not just in the design stakes but also in terms of performance, ride and comfort. The first generation, which was unveiled in 2010, struck a chord with buyers and the press alike, receiving widespread acclaim not least for its unique coupe-like design and the new model takes that design legacy and gives it a fresher, more aggressive contemporary look.

Built on a next-generation platform, the A7 Sportback targets expression, both for its owners and for Audi’s own design team. Even without delving deeply into its exterior design, which is a more visually seamless fit into the Audi range than before, the new A7 is a far better car than its predecessor. 

It’s 4969mm long, just a tick under five metres and about 17cm shorter than the A8. It boasts a wheelbase of 2926mm giving it 20mm more rear legroom, while the tailgate hinges remain on the roof, hiding a 535-litre luggage area that can now hold a pair of golf bags sideways. 

It’s crammed with the next wave of top-end Audi tech, including a 48-Volt mild-hybrid system that adds 12kW of performance at low revs, swallows braking energy at the same rate and saves fuel both ways. There are also options like active rear wheel steering, active anti-roll bars, three-chamber air suspension and 21-inch wheels.

It’s also pre-engineered for Level 3 (it’s in charge except until it needs you) self-driving, so it can be ordered with up to five cameras, five radar sensors, 12 ultra-sonic sensors and a laser LiDar scanner, all networked via a zFas controller that manages the car’s 39 driver assistance systems. 

The difficulty for autonomous driving with the A7 Sportback is that most owners will inevitably prefer to do most of the driving themselves and more importantly at this stage, in markets like Australia, the legal framework and legislation has not caught up to the technology, so driving duties remain with the driver – for now at least.

The big grand tourer covers miles so easily, imbuing everybody inside it with a wonderful sense of calm, that driving it rarely feels like a strain.

Acoustic glass for the pillar-less windows has made the cabin far quieter, but it’s not the only contributor. It’s everything from the way the five-link rear suspension connects to the body to the sound deadening and the body engineers’ systematic eradication of vibration and harshness through the powertrain.

There is even more of that evident perfectionism when the start button for the 3.0-litre, turbocharged V6 engine is pushed.

The 250kW, 500Nm engine mates to a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission and a new, hang-on version of the quattro all-wheel drive system gives it enough grip to reach 100km/h in 5.3 seconds.

For everything that’s evidently going on beneath the skin to make it top out at a speed limiter at 250km/h, the driver only occasionally hears its efforts. There are points around 2800rpm where some vibrations tickle at the throttle pedal but otherwise the engine is only noticeable at the slick, smooth full throttle.

That feeling of calm and smoothness are helped by its freewheeling coast mode at light throttle between 55 and 160km/h, a start-stop system that can switch the engine off and on almost imperceptibly at up to 22km/h (to arrive calmly at traffic lights) and the undetectable efforts of the mild-hybrid system.

For all the technology, all the driver understands is that the A7 Sportback goes well, smoothly and quickly. Even full-throttle sprints to 100km/h feel more like an urgent accumulation of speed rather than a brutal thump. It’s as though the car regards any evidence of exertion to be unseemly.

It’s similar with the handling. There’s no way to overstep the limits of its grip on a public road unless, of course, that road leads to some manner of court-ordered asylum. All the driver usually notices is that it has unshakable grip and it has unstrained go and it never seems short of either.

The biggest visual step forward is its interior. The driver faces a 12.3-inch Virtual Cockpit as standard equipment, but it’s just one of three screens (if you don’t count the full-colour head-up display) and the only one that doesn’t give people the choice of touch operation. High in the centre of the dash is a 10.1-inch infotainment screen and beneath that, just ahead of the flat-topped gearshift lever, is another 8.6-inch touchscreen that is both a writing pad to feed the car instructions and the ventilation controls. 

One beauty of all these screens is that it just looks like a black panel when they’re off and the touchscreen makes it even easier to use. The voice command system is more conversational, too, even with Australian accents. 

It is a terrific place to spend time with comfortable front seats, while the rear seats deliver plenty of foot, leg and headroom, even with its sloping roofline. It’s as astonishingly quiet in the back as it is in the front and it’s every bit as comfortable.

It does it all so calmly, quietly and confidently that everybody inside it quickly feels the same way. Looking this good ends up just being a bonus.

Australian launch mid-2018. Final Australian specification of the A7 Sportback is yet to be confirmed.