If you want a weird German sedan with worse rear headroom and trunk space, you’ve got plenty of options from BMW and Mercedes. But if you wanted an Audi, you were limited to the big, expensive A7 family. Audi is now fixing that, with the A5 and S5 Sportback.
Audi’s A5s, S5s, and RS5s only come as coupes and cabrios. If you want a Sportback, you’d have to start looking in the A7 and S7 territory. The A5 and S5 Sportbacks slot in beneath the 7s, and offer more storage capacity for things and their people than the coupes. Obviously.
A5 Sportback buyers have two TFSI and three TDI engines to choose from, which will produce between 190 and 286 HP. Those can be matched with a six-speed manual, Audi’s S tronic dual clutch ‘box or an eight-speed automatic. Front-wheel-drive comes standard, but you can also check the box for all-wheel-drive.
The S5 Sportback comes with a 349-HP, V6 turbocharged engine, with all-wheel-drive and the eight-speed tiptronic transmission as standard gear.
Personally, I have a hunch these things aren’t coming here, even though I’m a huge fan of the S5. I’m used to the fact that we don’t get many of the cooler Audis here. And, from looking at the current Audi lineup we do have, it doesn’t really make much sense to bring them over.
Someone who wants an Audi sedan can easily buy the A6 or the A7. People who wants coupes buy the S5.
Someone who doesn’t want any of those things can get something else, or nothing at all. That’s the beauty of living here, in America, the Land of the Free. Get whatever car you want, in whatever amorphous car shape you want. Unless they don’t sell it here.
It’s fine.
UPDATE: No decision about whether or not this is coming stateside has been made yet, an Audi spokesman said. Which seems a bit silly, because I’m sure someone would buy this. They buy all the other oddly shaped German sedans. More cars for everyone is a good motto for life. “More cars,” I say, “more cars.”