Automotive Street Style www.automotivestreetstyle.com

by: Lyndon Conrad Bell

The word “hatchback” used to conjure images of an economical inexpensive runabout with a folding rear seat. A car that tried to be as many things as possible to its owner—who was typically younger and had goings on that required a capacious vehicle from time to time.

Today, all of that has changed.

Witness Audi’s A7, a luxury hatchback, designed to compete with the growing wave of luxury hatchbacks like Porsche Panamera, BMW 5-Series Grand Turismo, and at the extremely high end of the scale, Aston Martin Rapide.

Based on the next generation Audi A6, the A7 is an amalgamation of all the qualities we’ve come to admire so assiduously in the automobiles from Ingolstadt. First of all, the sleekly tapered styling combines sporty and luxurious in a thoroughly modern manner. Heads will continually swivel in this car’s wake.

Materials like layered oak, silk nappa leather and genuine aluminum trim headline the sumptuous accoutrements of the interior. The high center console contributes to a cockpit like feeling, while housing secondary controls in a way that is at once exciting as well as ergonomically sound. The instrumentation is characteristically bright and crisp.

Audis are also known for hosting serious tech and in this regard the A7 benefits in no small measure from the hand-me-downs of its A8 big brother. These include a touchpad controller that detects fingertip movement, Google Maps data, a heads-up system, blind-spot monitoring, radar sensors for detecting stopped traffic, and smart cruise control.

The sole engine choice in the U.S. at launch will be a 3.0-liter supercharged V6 delivering 300 horsepower and 325 ft-lbs of torque through a seven-speed dual clutch automated manual transmission—to all four wheels. Said to be more than adequate for motivating the A7’s 4100 pounds (0 to 60 = 5.6 seconds), true performance oriented drivers might still want to hold out for the S7. And while horsepower and torque figures for that engine have yet to be released, given it’s a twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V8, 450 horsepower (at minimum) is a reasonable assumption.
Over the road, the A7 is smooth when you want it to be and tenacious when you need it to be. The balance of ride and handling is maintained admirably. Audi’s torque vectoring all-wheel drive system helps the car through corners faster by accelerating the drive wheels needed to turn the car more sharply. The A7’s overall attitude is neutrality, yet on rough roads the car absorbs irregularities without transmitting them to the driver’s posterior—just like an Audi should.

Which is really nice, especially for a hatchback.