Audi A7 takes its own road

LEGEND has it that, shortly before making his ill-fated ascent of Everest in 1924, George Mallory was asked by a reporter why he wanted to climb the world’s highest mountain. “Because it’s there,” was the Englishman’s succinct reply.

You suspect Audi top brass might have been similarly blunt if anyone had raised a paw at the car’s pre-launch press conference and asked why they wanted to build the A7 Sportback, which blends the front of an executive saloon with a shopping car tailgate at the back. Audi’s answer, presumably, would have been: “Because we can.”

As a five-door, four-seat hatchback-cum-coupé on a grand scale, the sleek and swoopy A7 is a very big car occupying a very tiny niche. As far as we can deduce, its mission in life is to steal sales from just one other model: Mercedes Benz’s handsome CLS. Only a moon buggy has fewer market rivals.

Whether it deserves to exist or not, there’s no denying the A7 is a wonderful bit of kit. Those long, low lines and our car’s black paintwork evoke thoughts of Italian grand coupés of the 1970s. Is this the prettiest car in the current Audi line-up? We think so.

It’s also one of the priciest. The starting bid for our car is a not insubstantial £47,000. Go mad with the options list and the Audi salesman will hand you an invoice for nigh on twice as much. Two grand’s worth of night-vision camera, anyone?

The A7 is the first Audi to ride on the company’s MLB floorpan. Don’t care? Then consider this: it’s the first Audi to feature a fighter-jet style heads-up display in the windscreen. Still not interested? Well, here’s a little Scotsman Motors fact for you to cut out and keep: the A7 is the first Audi to share a name with the road to Galashiels. Armed with that knowledge, see if you can guess where I took it for a test drive.

Because this is Scotland and it’s the weekend, it’s raining, so I’m grateful for the “quattro” badge on the Audi’s rump. The four-wheel drive system it denotes might toil to take modern-day Mallorys to the top of a mountain, but it bestows the A7 with reassuring levels of grip on a greasy road to Gala.

Power – and there’s lots of it – is supplied by a 3.0-litre V6 turbodiesel engine, mated to a seven-speed automatic gearbox.

Progress is as swift as it is effortless. 0-60 takes a whisker over six seconds, but it’s the mountain of torque and the slick gearchange that impress most, making overtaking a breeze.

Audi knows how to do a good interior, and the A7 is no exception. Slightly brown leather seats and a slightly-more brown dash and steering wheel might sound a bit “hospital corridor” but it was actually quite tasteful and impeccably put together.

Toys include a park assist system that will shuffle the A7 into a space, cruise control that will keep you clear of the car in front and, for £6,300, a Bang & Olufsen sound system that will bring the Albert Hall to you when board meetings overrun and you can’t make it to the Albert Hall.

The A7’s size – it’s 16 feet long – suggest it’s more of an elephant than a nimble goat, but aluminium body panels keep the weight down and drivers will be pleasantly surprised by the A7’s graceful road manners. Plus, all models feature “Drive Select” adaptive dynamics, so you can fiddle with the steering weight, throttle response and gearbox.

Why you would want to do so is anybody’s guess. Why Audi built the A7 is also anybody’s guess, but we should be glad they had the courage to do so.