Can you say future crowded market? And BMW's CS is on the way.

hopefully it looks better than the CC

i would hope they'd make it out of the A4. isn't the point of the A5 2 doors? as in a coupe and not sedan, no matter how swoopy?
unless by 2 door sportback they mean, say it with me, SHOOTING BRAKE!?

Man, I love crappy online translations. "The A5 proposed a like a bomb." "If you donna drive an Audi Imma gonna tear outta your arms and shtick em up yer ice." Oh, and coupedans suck.

This rumor as been floating around for awhile, but everybody else says the A5 Sportback will have more of a wagon (or shooting brake?) shape -- more like the A3 Sportback. See this link: [www.motorauthority.com]

I'm not a big fan of the Passat CC... I sat in it in Detroit. It's fine -- but I like the regular sedan Passat and I can't see paying more money for less car.

But for a shooting brake style A5 I would gladly trade in my A3...

I am a sucker for teardrop profiles. Sucks for anyone bigger than a rugrat in the back, but hey, if you want headroom as a passenger take the bus.
Sportback, 5 door, shooting break, wagon back, clubman, whatever the marketing double speak, they are all pretty practical designs for stuffing our junk in the car.

There are some really great designs coming out of the studios, good times in the car world.

Rumored for a while an A7 was on the way, large coupe-type sedan, like the CLS. not sure if that was dumped or what.

The CLS had a sales decline of 26.5% in the US last year - they didn't even manage to move 8,000 units. The much-despised R-Class moved over 13,000 units - 63% more than the CLS.

Beautiful as the CLS may be, it was a flavor-of-the-month and its time has passed.

@Schm: Probably one and the same

If, unlike all other automakers, Audi decides to market the vehicle for what it is - in this case, a sedan with compromised rear headroom - then prospective customers will probably take a look.

If, on the other hand, they resort to stupid marketing BS ("4-door coupé" and "crossover", "sport activity vehicle", attaching the word "sport" in front of everything that can roll downhill, and so forth), then consumers will just shrug and walk over to the models that they recognize.

The team from Ingolstadt has been very busy these last few years, and I applaud their excellent progress. But I think their next task should be implmenting powerful diesels across their entire range.

I love it how the manufacturer's design all these "sport" crossovers (or whatever the fashionable name is at the moment). In the end realism almost always proves them less successful than their marketing department wishfully thought...

Of the people buying a Passat, how many will actually spend more on less? A swoopy roof and less room in the back doesn't make anything "sport" to me in any case.
The people that have money for the Passat CC could probably buy a car with (much) more guts.

I think they could have done better than just pulling the generally agreed "swoopy roof semi-coupe" image through their branding mill. Maybe the Audi will be slightly nicer to look at but the principle is the same.

i found the cure for rip-off disease. follow me if you will with this formula, mondeo+3series+v80=A5 sportback, use it wisely.

^^ woops, scratch that its not v80 its s80 to the power of three, my humblest apologies to anyone who may used the prior formula you may have turned out with a passat cc.

As sedan sales slide in Europe (not sure about stateside) it's no surprise that manufacturers are doing their best to reinvent the saloon by making them funkier. Reminds me of the Rover P5 "Coupe" of the 60s

BOOO!

The wagons and SUVs with the fastback styling already suffer from reduced cargo areas and practicality. The Coupedans just suck on rear headroom, unless you keep the company of Oompa-Loompas and/or Tom Cruise.

@ash78: "The Coupedans just suck on rear headroom, unless you keep the company of Oompa-Loompas and/or Tom Cruise."

We're a rather exclusive niche. I'll grant you that. Of course, Katie's legs go all the way up, so she always has to sit up front.

So I've got that going for me. Which is nice.

Isn't sportback a style of bra?

What happened to that A7 concept?
[www.motorauthority.com]

I was just thinking, Audi does need a few more models in the lineup.