This feels a big, bulky car. The pillars are thick, especially the centre pillar which, judging by the meeting of the flush front and rear side windows, the design team would rather wasn't there. The waistline is high, and you feel hemmed in if you set the seat for an appropriately sporting driving position. Those huge mirrors are great for seeing behind but not so good for the forward-three-quarter view they obscure. Instruments and switches are clear and easy to use.
So, what about this new chassis, now less nose-heavy and sharper-steering? The improvement is not immediately obvious. The steering is indeed more accurate and less springy than that of past mid-size Audis, but it still feels aloof from the road. And the nose still wants to run wide if you enter a bend enthusiastically, with no help from the tail if you ease the accelerator. It would be good if this action brought the tail around a bit, but the A5 is disappointingly inert here.
The front-drive 3.2 Multitronic feels the most immediately agile because it's lighter, just as a front-drive Audi TT 2.0 is more nimble than a 3.2 Quattro. The A5 3.0 TDI Quattro feels a touch heavier but once in a corner its four-wheel drive (with nominally 60% of torque going to the back wheels) makes it ultimately better able to stay on course so you can exit a bend more cleanly. As for the S5, pinnacle of the range, it really does feel big and heavy although it has plenty of grip on its big 18" wheels. There's no joy in hustling it through bends; ultimately the 3.0 TDI Quattro is best for that, helped by the engine's fabulous torque.
Why the dull dynamics? And why waste all that effort in developing the new platform? Audi's chief chassis engineer agrees with our assessment and would like things to be different, but Audi's marketing department insisted that the A5 must feel familiar to existing Audi owners. Which suggests that a) those owners would be unable to appreciate an improvement, which is an odd stance to take, and b) that Audi isn't interested in attracting buyers from BMW. The marketeers have shot themselves in the foot, then.
One good point, though. The brakes are nicely progressive as well as having a good, powerful bite. The snatchy, over-servoed brakes of past Audis are history, thank goodness.
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