Audi hatches a liftback

A5 SPORTBACK: Lazy "m" waistline works well with new five-door version of Audi's mid-sizer.

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At first he couldn't see the point, but on driving the car DAVE MOORE found the new A5 Sportback was as good as it looked.

All three luxury German car brands appear to have concentrated in recent times on filling niches rather than creating markets. Looking at BMW, Benz and Audi model listings and extrapolating colour, trim, specification, engine and gearbox choices, it's plausible that everyone in the world could own a unique car without moving from the German triumvirate.

On the company's 100th birthday last year, Audi launched the A5 Sportback - effectively putting four doors and a hatch lid on to a car which previously had been known as a two- door coupe and cabriolet. The same market research that created the idea seems to have guided BMW into its own five-door 5-series GT and Mercedes-Benz towards a similarly configured rendering of its CLS coupe.

Audi's Sportback is the first of these new five-door designs to surface in New Zealand, and I have to say that in light of the A4 sedan and avant (wagon), and the recently revealed Q5 SUV, the company seems to already have most load and passenger combinations pretty well covered.

However, one look at the five-door newcomer, with its frameless side windows and long, lissom look, has me thinking, if asked whether the presence of this car adds anything to our motoring pleasure, then I'd answer, emphatically, yes.

Despite being 36mm lower slung than the A4 sedan, the A5 Sportback's rear headroom is only slightly compromised. The top of my head merely brushed the headlining and for leg and shoulder space, you'll have no complaints.

In fact, the whole interior is exactly what you would expect from a design that effectively combines A4 with A5, brilliantly detailed, solid as a bankvault and totally familiar and unfussy.

The Sportback's 480-litre rear load area is the same as the A4 sedan and avant when loaded to the top of the seat backs, but it can be expanded to 980 litres with the rear seats folded, which is somewhat better than the sedan, but not as good as the avant.

The five-door profile also does something else for Audi. It forms the first counterpoint in any Audi model for the deep, "goatee" grille treatment that has infested the brand's styling during the past three or four years. I've always thought the goatee front - perhaps inspired by the facial hair of baseball pitchers, rappers and motocrossers - has been a little heavy-handed in previous Audis, but now, attached to the A5 Sportback, it has something to balance it. This is, to my mind, Audi's best looking model since the original 100 coupe of the early 1970s.

Two initial versions of the A5 Sportback will be available in New Zealand, a $89,900 155kW/ 350Nm turbo petrol TSi 2.0-litre four, and a $109,900 175kW/500Nm V6 turbo diesel TDi 3.0-litre V6. Each power unit runs through Audi's twin-shaft seven-speed Sportronic transmission and employs the company's well- established Quattro all-wheel-drive system. S-line cosmetic and chassis packs are available for the cars, costing another $6000 for the four, and $8000 for the six.

At the car's launch, I drove the A5 in 3.0-litre TDi form, with the S-Line package, and the car's optional sports rear differential. There's no doubt the V6 diesel is a punchy performer, with a 6.1 second zero to 100kmh time - 0.6sec quicker than the petrol four - but the star of the show is that special diff. It uncannily apportions torque between the two rear wheels, so that on an engaging piece of backroad, the A5 feels like a rear-drive car, and a pretty athletic one at that.

I hope to spend a little more time with this car for a full road test. In the meantime, I have to say that given a choice of this car against more conservative Audis in this price spectrum, such as the A4 sedan and wagon, or slightly less practical ones such as the A5 coupe and cabrio, the Sportback would be a pretty compelling halfway point.

- © Fairfax NZ News