Glisse

Audi held a drive event for journalists in Portugal yesterday for the A5 and S5 coupé, following from last week's drive event for the S4 near Frankfurt last week.

Here's one of the first reviews out:

plat27265

Thanks for sharing this video, Glisse! I have not seen it in full yet but I just discovered that it is hosted by Zack Spencer, one of my favorite Canadian Auto Journalists.

Update: Watched the video and it was a good presentation. He had a lot of nice things to say about it which is typical of auto journalists. He sounded like a car salesman with a lot of praises on the new exterior and interior styling. But, he did admit that it is a love it or hate it thing. One thing for sure, performance-wise, it is much better than the B8 or B8.5.

It will be interesting, once it becomes available, to take it out for a spin and see for myself how the B9 is much better than the B8.

MattMan3104

Good stuff Glisse. Thanks for posting the video. I'm excited to see one in person.

dseag2

Thanks for the video! I'm not a fan of the new front styling, but I will definitely take one for a spin when the time is right.

Glisse

Yes, this Canadian reviewer seems a down to earth guy. IIRC, he bought an A7 a year or so back as his personal car, so he obviously likes Audi.

I'm not too sure about the front either. But the Daytona grey towards the end looks quite sharp, and possibly would be even better with a black optics grill to avoid that weird squashed look vs the tall looking headlights floating above and beyond. Just doesn't seem at all integrated, despite the desperate attempt with all the bonnet creases to pull it together.

When the reviewer basically says who cares what it looks like on the outside when the inside is great and it drives very well, you just know he was being a bit polite about the exterior looks

SloopJohnB@mac.com

I hate those sharp lines. They're problems when polishing/detailing and in collusion repair.
I prefer the smooth bauhaus style.

superswiss

It's basically a production version of the Audi Prologue. I think the concept had potential, but as with all concepts, the production versions are often less impressive.



Lol at collusion repair :-).

plat27265

That is so true. I failed to mention it in my post above but I thought of the same thing when I got to that segment of the video where he said this. Us Canadians are a very polite bunch!

Glisse

I think it is intended as a transitional design. The C8 A7 will look quite close to the Prologue, I suspect.

If they had used Prologue style headlights on the A5/S5, that would have made a significant improvement, because as per your render they work in perfect harmony with the front grill and you see everything as one cohesive design element.

But I guess they were too scared to lose that flowing curve from the de Silva design, and so they had to fatten up the lights to meet the crease line yet not look like Groucho Marx's eyebrows.

But they made a hash of it, ending up with the worst of both worlds. Conservative decision making, lack of conviction. Still, those "outside" of Audi seem to think it looks much the same as the B8, so maybe we are too close?

Force-1