Before us is an Audi. And that says it all. Even if this coupe is the first in eleven years. Even if under the hood of the A5 there are exclusively six-cylinder engines. Even if the steering wheel is more informative and the suspension has become denser. But it is still an Audi. In the way the new coupe responds to my commands, I easily recognize dozens of other models of the brand, and two hours behind the wheel of the A5 imperceptibly dissolve into thousands of kilometers of roads traveled under the sign of the four rings.
Walter de Silva, the chief designer of the entire Volkswagen Group, calls the Audi A5 his most beautiful creation. The creator, of course, knows better, although he said similar words about other projects — Alfa Romeo 156, Seat Salsa… Well, let's believe that the A5 coupe really succeeded. So much so that a separate image photo shoot was even arranged for the car. Right here in Italy, the coupe was photographed by the famous photographer Gabrielle Oistrich, better known as Gabo. She shot not with a digital camera, but the old-fashioned way — on wide slide film. The extras were popular German actors — Natalia Werner and Robert Siliger. TV series heroes, favorites of housewives. Their photos with the Audi A5 will still appear in all glossy magazines...
Oh, why don't I work for a glossy magazine? I would fill ten pages with Gabo's shots — and that's it, I could collect my fee. And I wouldn't have to crawl around the Verona vineyards with a camera myself, and most importantly — not torment the engineers with questions...
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| The interior is clearly driver-oriented. But compared to the Audi A6, it looks more refined. You won't find flat surfaces — everything is curved, sharpened. The trim materials are impeccable: the plastic of the front panel is so soft that it seems it will melt in the sun | The instruments have become more laconic, but all elements remain in their places — information is read in the usual way |
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| The precision of the manual gearbox is slightly inferior to the impeccable design of the lever | The Audi A5 doesn't have an automatic gearbox yet, but on front-wheel-drive modifications, the chain-driven Multitronic is available — the best CVT in the world. The MMI system remains the same: everything would be fine if you didn't have to look down to find the right button. But the controller itself seems to have been finished by jewelers: fine facets, black lacquer... And instead of the usual handbrake — an electromechanical parking brake with a control key |
In fact, there is noticeably less "gloss" in the Audi A5 than, say, in the BMW 3 Series coupe. The Audi has the face of a brawler with mischievous LED sparks in its "eyes." A low-slung roof and a small side glass area. Massive rear pillars and a shortened rear overhang. And look at the car in profile — this silhouette can hardly be called frivolous.
Opening the frameless door, you completely lose interest in the polished symmetry of current BMW interiors — here it is, driver's happiness! Audi designers have tightly occupied the niche temporarily vacated by the people of former BMW chief designer Chris Bangle. The A5's interior envelops the driver, the concave front panel attracts him, offering a high-mounted gear lever and a tenacious steering wheel. The rim is not too thick — this wheel wasn't made for girls with long nails! Although they didn't forget about girls either: allegedly, it's for them that the clutch pedal was made so long-travel, because the greater the engine torque, the longer the pedal travel — so that the effort doesn't exceed "female" 120 newtons. They'd better install "automatics" if they're so caring, but instead, for four engines — "manual" and CVT, with the latter only on front-wheel drive.
And there's plenty of torque here! At least 330 Nm — that's what the new 3.2 "six" with direct injection and variable valve timing produces. The most vivid impression from this 265-horsepower engine is the first acceleration. Then you get used to the crazy "diesel" traction at low revs, but at first... The lever clicks through gears like nuts: first — 60 km/h, second — 100, third — 160. Braking — the car slightly skids. Before a turn — rev-matching. But back into third, the lever doesn't go! The crunch of synchronizers — and the clutch takes on the wrath of the engine, which unexpectedly found itself in first gear. This happened more than once or twice...
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| The stylish key is inserted into a vertical slot on the front panel: press — and the engine starts | We will see the new elegant climate control unit in other Audi models | The designers approached even the most mundane details with imagination |
If you don't push it, the gears don't get confused, and you can calmly drive in one top gear — the petrol V6 pulls the one-and-a-half-ton coupe from 40 km/h, almost from 1500 rpm. The engine smoothly revs to the limiter, where it gently fades. But when exactly the camshafts switch to "power" lobes is a mystery covered in a thick layer of torque.
A wonderful engine! And if the petrol "six" lacks anything, it's a beautiful voice: Audi's acousticians failed to find an interesting, mesmerizing note for the 3.2 engine.
Or maybe they spent all their efforts on the eight-cylinder version, the Audi S5? That one sounds so good that you don't want to release the gas pedal at all — it growls like all of Bagdasarov's tigers at once. The "direct" V8 already produces 354 hp and can accelerate in top gear right from idle. The claimed acceleration to 100 km/h compared to the Audi A5 3.2 has decreased by a second — to 5.1 s. But it's not the ultimate capabilities that make the S5 subjectively faster, but precisely the sound and the sharpened gas pedal. But if I were deaf and lame — I would never distinguish the "S" from the "just" A5! They are very similar in character. And most importantly, it's impossible to describe this character in one word. "Generally" — that's perhaps the most accurate definition. Generally Audi.
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| After Bose "went out of print," Audi marketers found a new lure for audiophiles — Danish Bang&Olufsen | The Audi S5 sports seats are the best of the three options offered for the coupe. But the lateral support is not adjustable: the BMW 3 Series coupe seats hold better in corners |
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| In the back, the roof in the Audi is lower than in the BMW, and there's less legroom. However, a person 188 cm tall can still sit "behind himself," even with a small margin. It's just hard to get to the rear seats — the sill gets in the way, and the front seat doesn't slide far enough. The backrests fold in parts | The drag coefficient Cx is reduced to an impressive 0.28. Even on the edges of the rear lights, small spoilers are installed for better airflow separation |
The new coupe is so similar to everything that came before it that I didn't remember the details. Only that the Audi A5 is something simple and understandable, requiring no getting used to. At first glance, stiff and with quick responses to steering input. But as soon as the elastokinematics of the suspensions do their job, the reactions suddenly fade and stretch, forcing you to turn the wheel to a larger angle than you expect. Understeer has decreased but remains — and that's great on high-speed combinations when you can slide past the apex on all four wheels. Additionally, you can open the throttle earlier — because 60% of the torque is now sent to the rear. And only in slow hairpins will the Torsen differential not let you break the car loose with the gas and go through the turn in a spectacular drift. Here, the asymmetry of all-wheel drive plays no role — hundreds of newton-meters just pull the nose into the oncoming lane.
Compliant, reliable behavior, but devoid of individuality. This is Audi. And that's it. Period.
Why don't I write for glossy magazines! Then I would have had enough of the luxurious sound and stylish body kit of the snow-white S5 coupe to confess eternal love to this car. It would have been enough to mention Verona to drag in the balcony scene, drool over the city of lovers, forgetting that the story of Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy with a disgusting ending…
On the way to Verona, I was thinking that it would be nice to pit the BMW 'three' coupe against the Audi A5 in a head-to-head duel, like Tybalt and Romeo. But if the hot-tempered Bavarian can still play the role of the 'prince of cats', then the A5 has not a drop of Romeo's passion or ardor. So no one will die — this is not Shakespearean passion. And yet I was genuinely delighted when the Germans published the first data on the Audi A5. It immediately became clear: the new generation Audi A4, which will share the platform with the coupe, will not lose its individuality. The longitudinally mounted engines will remain in place and — more importantly — the honest all-wheel drive with a Torsen differential. The picture was shaping up to be almost heroic: while the whole world is chasing unification and building cars on universal 'carts', the Volkswagen concern is creating two different platforms for cars of the same class — with a transverse engine layout (for the Passat) and a longitudinal one (for the Audi A4). Why not? Audi is one of the few European brands that consistently turns a profit. And why not then go its own way? After all, money is minted freedom. But everything turned out not so rosy. In Ingolstadt, they treat money with much more reverence than I expected. I questioned Dr. Horst Glaser, one of the engineers responsible for the chassis, about the new front suspension, which they call 'five-link'. The diagrams showed double wishbones — upper and lower, each made of two aluminum 'bones'. Two times two is four. So where is the fifth link? Glaser smirks into his gray goatee: — It's the tie rod. — But it was there before... — Of course. It's just that the scheme used to be called four-link, and now it's five-link. It's marketing: new customers need new terms. — So the platform is old? — Hmm... In principle, yes. But we are satisfied with it, and we would never have switched to a Haldex coupling for the rear wheel drive — Torsen is cheaper. As for the suspension, only the overall architecture remained unchanged, all the elastokinematics are new... However, the 'new' Audi platform has one truly fundamental feature — the front axle, shifted forward. Everyone dreamed of this: de Silva was bothered by the excessively long front overhang, and the engineers wanted to improve the weight distribution by placing the powertrain deeper in the wheelbase. In the end, everything came together like a solitaire. The clutch was moved back — it ended up between the front final drive and the gearbox. Of course, it's now harder to replace, but the front axle was successfully moved forward by as much as 152 mm! The steering rack was also relocated — now it's in front of the axle: this only added more feedback to the steering. The wheelbase immediately grew — by ten centimeters. Here, the Audi A5 is only slightly inferior to the BMW third-series coupe. — We couldn't increase the wheelbase further for two reasons, — explains Glaser. — Firstly, for design reasons, and secondly, it would increase the turning radius, since the steering angle of the front wheels on a front-wheel-drive or all-wheel-drive car is limited. — You say: 'firstly, design', and only then maneuverability. And if you had found a way to bend the drive joints more, wouldn't the designers have allowed you to lengthen the wheelbase? — Walter de Silva is very principled. He, for example, insisted on such a sloping roofline, even though because of it we lose at least a centimeter of headroom for rear passengers compared to BMW. In this conversation, along with Glaser, transmission specialist Marc Schäfer participated. And as soon as we mentioned BMW, he perked up. I say to him: your neighbors from Munich have finally refined their all-wheel drive — now they have a system that redistributes torque between the rear wheels. Almost like the Mitsubishi Evo. — We've been producing all-wheel-drive cars for twenty years and we know that when distributing torque between axles, the Torsen differential is more effective than electronics. However, we are not sitting idle, — Schäfer replied, but declined further comments. Also, I say, BMW is about to have a preselective gearbox similar to Volkswagen's DSG. You, of course, have the best CVT in the world, Multitronic, which now has as many as eight fixed gears. But it doesn't work with all-wheel drive, and the current DSG is designed only for transversely mounted engines... — No big deal, we'll redesign the DSG! — the engineers smile. Aha, so there will be such a modification. And why, I ask, did third gear on your new manual transmission engage every other time for me, and I kept ending up in first? It turned out that not only I had problems with shifting, but Schäfer chalked it all up to the flaws of pilot production. Then we moved on to chassis tuning: I complained about how acutely I lack the difference between the A5 and S5. Glaser just sighed: — You say the Audi S5 lacks sportiness? And at dinner, I had to listen to reproaches from elderly German journalists who found the coupe too stiff. By the way, people like them, with their bad backs, make up the bulk of our customers. I'm almost sixty myself, but, thank God, I still want to drive a sports car. Although it's not a fact that I'll think the same way when I turn seventy... But in principle, you're right: the difference between the A5 and S5 is more marketing than engineering. Although this car is still capable of doing the Nordschleife in 'eight minutes and ten seconds'... And on that note, we parted. Or rather, they dragged me away from them. After sitting in the bar for a bit, I suddenly jumped up as if stung and ran out onto the terrace, where Glaser and his colleagues were enjoying their last evening cigarette. Seeing me again, the doctor's face changed. I apologized: — I just can't get one thing out of my head: 8.15 is the time of the BMW M3 at the Nordschleife. Is the Audi S5, with its ABS so sensitive to bumps and on slippery Bridgestone tires, really faster than the M3? Is your 'eight and ten' a full lap or a 'tourist' version without the one-and-a-half-kilometer straight from Döttinger Höhe to the 'zoo'?— Without, — Glaser said curtly.
Well, there you have the balcony scene. Just like in a glossy magazine about Romeo and Juliet. In the end, it's not so critical how many seconds the Audi S5 takes to lap the Nordschleife — it's not a race car, but the most beautiful creation of Walter de Silva. And to be honest, I like the docile Audi A5 coupe more than the 'three' — it's too sharp, strict, and demanding. The Audi is an excellent car for everyday life. Beautiful, but not yet glamorous. However, I want something more: I need to feel how Audi's excellent engines are pushing our aging world forward, not just carrying tens of thousands of German pensioners from point A to point B. Otherwise, why does Audi need honest all-wheel drive?
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| The rear of the 'S' is recognizable by the twin exhaust tips and decorative diffuser — because of them, the bumper has become one centimeter longer |
The Audi A5's trunk is slightly more spacious than the BMW third-series coupe's — 455 liters |
| Passport data | ||||
| Parameters | Vehicle | |||
| Audi A5/S5 | ||||
| Modification | A5 3.2 FSI | A5 2.7 TDI | A5 3.0 TDI quattro | S5 |
| Body type | 2-door coupe | 2-door coupe | 2-door coupe | 2-door coupe |
| Number of seats | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Trunk volume, l | 455 | 455 | 455 | 455 |
| Curb weight, kg | 1495 (1535)* | 1575 | 1610 | 1630 |
| Gross weight, kg | 1995 (2035) | 2075 | 2110 | 2130 |
| Engine | petrol, with direct injection | diesel, turbocharged | diesel, turbocharged | petrol, with direct injection |
| Location | front, longitudinal | front, longitudinal | front, longitudinal | front, longitudinal |
| Number and arrangement of cylinders | 6, V-shaped | 6, V-shaped | 6, V-shaped | 8, V-shaped |
| Displacement, cm³ | 3123 | 2698 | 2967 | 4163 |
| Cylinder bore/piston stroke, mm | 84.5/92.8 | 83.0/83.1 | 83.0/91.4 | 84.5/92.8 |
| Compression ratio | 12.5:1 | 16.8:1 | 16.8:1 | 11.0:1 |
| Number of valves | 24 | 24 | 24 | 32 |
| Max. power, hp/kW/rpm | 265/195/6500 | 190/140/3500—4000 | 239/176/4000—4400 | 354/260/7000 |
| Max. torque, Nm/rpm | 330/3000—5000 | 400/1400—3250 | 500/1500—3000 | 440/3500 |
| Gearbox | CVT (manual, 6-speed) | CVT | manual, 6-speed | manual, 6-speed |
| Drive | front (permanent all-wheel) | front | permanent all-wheel | permanent all-wheel |
| Front suspension | independent, spring, four-link | independent, spring, four-link | independent, spring, four-link | independent, spring, four-link |
| Rear suspension | independent, spring, trapezoidal arms | independent, spring, trapezoidal arms | independent, spring, trapezoidal arms | independent, spring, trapezoidal arms |
| Front brakes | disc, ventilated | disc, ventilated | disc, ventilated | disc, ventilated |
| Rear brakes | disc | disc | disc | disc, ventilated |
| Tires | 225/50 R17 | 225/50 R17 | 225/50 R17 | 245/40 R18 |
| Maximum speed, km/h | 250 | 232 | 250 | 250 |
| Acceleration time 0—100 km/h, s | 6.6 (6.1) | 7.6 | 5.9 | 5.1 |
| Fuel consumption, l/100 km | ||||
| urban cycle | 12.5 (14.2) | 9.2 | 9.9 | 17.8 |
| extra-urban cycle | 6.6 (7.0) | 5.3 | 5.7 | 9.2 |
| combined cycle | 8.7 (9.7) | 6.7 | 7.2 | 12.4 |
| Fuel tank capacity, l | 65 (64) | 65 | 64 | 63 |
| Fuel | petrol AI-95 | diesel | diesel | petrol AI-98 |
| * Data in parentheses — for version with all-wheel drive transmission | ||||
Price issue
If we rely on the already announced European price lists, we can expect that in Russia the Audi A5 with the 3.2 engine popular with us will cost at least $65,000. If this forecast comes true, then the Audi A5 3.2 will find itself exactly in the gap in the market that yawns between the most affordable BMW 325Ci coupe and its older brother BMW 335Ci with a turbocharged "six" with 306 hp. Plus, for Russian buyers there is an option to order a V6 detuned to 249 hp to avoid paying crazy taxes for power. And by autumn, a "budget" modification with a 170-hp 1.8 TFSI turbo engine will be ready...