The answer to the question: “What car should I buy?” always used to be the Volkswagen Golf, usually with a turbodiesel under the bonnet, says Carlton Boyce. Thus equipped, it was fast and frugal while being spacious enough to accommodate a family of four. Reliability was, of course, guaranteed.
And while the Golf is still a cracking car, the advent of low-cost PCP financing for new vehicles means that the showroom price is now almost irrelevant; what matters for most folk is how much it will cost them every month. So, while my test car, which was equipped with the two-litre, 190hp turbodiesel engine, Quattro drivetrain and a suitably sober metallic finish, might have nudged the scales at a fraction over £41,000, you’ll only have to find around £400 a month if you fancy having one on your drive.
In comparison, a similarly equipped Volkswagen Golf is just over £10,000 cheaper. Still, when you understand that this equates to a monthly saving of about £50, the bigger, premium Audi A5 Sportback suddenly looks like a bargain.
Available in three body styles, you can have your Audi A5 as a two-door coupe, a five-door Sportback — as we’re testing here — or a three-door cabriolet, and while the coupe’s lines flow the most elegantly and the cabriolet gives you the option of driving sans roof, the longer, sleeker glass-line and extra practicality of the Sportback makes it the pick of the bunch for me.
The interior is typically Audi, which is to say that it is very, very nice. Audi’s interiors have long been well above the industry standard, and the A5’s is no exception. There’s nothing radical in there, but everything is just executed brilliantly. For example, the seats are not only firm and supportive, but they are also wonderfully comfortable and offer a perfect driving position.
The switchgear is intuitive and operates with a satisfying action, and even the in-car entertainment/sat-nav system is easy to understand. While some cars take time to get familiar with, I was operating pretty much all of the Audi’s equipment without effort after just a few minutes behind the wheel.
I’m not generally a fan of cruise control, but the A5’s was as good as non-active systems get, and I was especially impressed with how easy the speed limiter is to operate; I drove from my home in north Wales down to the outer reaches of Kent, which meant going through dozens of roadworks and the associated 50mph temporary speed limits. Wary of inadvertently exceeding them in an unfamiliar (and uncommonly civilised) vehicle, I set the Audi to that speed with two clicks and was able to relax in the knowledge the car wouldn’t exceed it.
And the Audi A5 Sportback is uncommonly civilised at speed because that sleek, aerodynamic shape cleaves the air so cleanly. Throw in some heavy-duty under-bonnet noise suppression, and the loudest noise at 70mph was the distant thrum of tyre noise. Even the ride quality, long an Audi weakness, was more than acceptable.
Problems? None, really. The gearbox was a bit recalcitrant in anything other than the Sport setting, but that’s par for the course these days; I’m convinced engineers worldwide are instructed to programme every other setting to optimise fuel consumption rather than driving enjoyment. But, other than that, I can’t think of a single thing I didn’t like.
This makes the Audi A5 Sportback the new answer to the what-car-should-I-buy question that motoring journalists are plagued with (and no, I don’t have an answer to your what’s-the-best-car-you’ve-ever-driven question, either…).
So there you have it; if you can find another £50 a month, then the Audi A5 Sportback is my new Best Family Car in the World.
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