Audi Q5

Top Gear

Audi's sub-suv drives well, has a great interior and a good range of engines, says tom ford. but it's not sporty or exciting, despite the blurb

If I hear the word 'sporty' or 'performance' taken in vain yet again in the next 30 seconds, I'm going to lash out and start kicking chairs over. Not everything in the universe has to be 'sporty' or 'performance' to give it credibility. Not being sporty is, in fact, perfectly acceptable. I don't need performance-orientated underpants, or a sporty door handle, and both are things that I personally could live without.

So why is Audi launching a small 'performance' SUV that it is touting as the 'sports car in the SUV category' without any sense of irony? It does not compute. Though it possibly has something to do with the same marketing team that came up with the assertion that the Q5 is 'small', when all things are relative and the Q5 is only actually small when compared to big-brother Q7, which has its own gravity well.

Still, if you take a gander at the ever-increasing strata of sub full-size SUVs/SAVs (or whatever sub-category the men in suits have casually rolled out this week), you'll see that the Q5 is aiming squarely for the top end of the market, and making no apologies for it. So you can forget realistic group tests with the Nissan X-Trails of the world; the Q5 starts at £30k and continues ever upwards into the fiscal realms of some very competent machinery. It had better be something special.

The bare-paper stuff certainly reads like Audi isn't skimping on the smaller of its two-model SUV range. The Q5 will be launchedin the UK with a rebuilt-from-the-ground-up 211bhp 2.0TFSI four-cylinder petrol, now with variable valve lift, and a pair of diesels, the 170bhp, 2.0-litre TDi four and the 240bhp, 3.0-litre TDi V6. The small four-pot diesel gets a six-speed manual transmission, while the two others benefit from next-generation 'S-Tronic' double-clutchery, now with seven speeds.

The drivetrain is quattro across the range and uses a 40/60 front/rear bias in normal driving conditions to give 'sporty handling and a rear-driven emphasis'. Hmm. Should things get tricky, 65 per cent of the available torque can be shoved through the front wheels, or 85 per cent through the rears, and there's a hill-descent control for light off-road, and some clever ESP programming that can alter various parameters depending on what surface you're on (mud/sand/rubble), or even sense if you've got a heavy load on the roof rails.

But even though the new Q5 will be offered with several off-roady options, Audi is more or less convinced that most won't see dirt unless one has to swerve around a poor person. There's an option called 'Audi drive select' that has the usual settings (comfort, auto and dynamic) that affect the usual parameters (steering, throttle map, gearbox actuation). That tells you more or less all you need to know - this car is set up for road-going adjustability rather than off-road unstoppability.

It works, though. The Q5 itself has a long wheelbase compared to others in the sector - the diffe rential is located ahead of the clutch directly behind the engine, as on the A4, allowing the front axle to be pushed well forward - and that makes for stable and regular progress, even when you go pretty quickly. This is supposed to add to the car's, and I quote, 'thrilling dynamism'. Ahem.

Sorry, no, the Q5 isn't exactly thrilling in any guise - even though the acceleration figures are undoubtedly impressive - but what it is, is superbly confident. It rides well, even without the drive-select system. In fact, flicking between the triple functions invariably had me leaving the system in 'auto' and letting a couple of megabytes of processing power take care of the damping.

The steering tries hard, but still manages to feel mightily assisted and then retuned with fake 'feel'. Its the tofu steering experience not the real thing, but sometimes tastes a bit like it if you're not really paying attention. It's certainly not what Audi describe as 'worthy of a sports sedan'. Again, it's perfectly good for this kind of vehicle - just slightly oversold.

The best bit about the Q5 is the interior and general demeanour. Inside it feels well-made, solid and well-specced - all the launch cars in the UK will be of 'SE' spec, so there'll be no boggo, steel-wheeled monstrosity pounding the streets and there have been some sensible and characterful upgrades to the MMI interface and the satnav.

Pop-up information windows on the full-colour screen are really very well animated, and the satnav now maps in 'proper' 3D, with landmarks drawn like a computer game. Seriously, you can count the windows in the Houses of Parliament. Theres also the usual iPod/mp3-player docks, and a card-reader in the dash, as well as a DVD-capable screen that's standard you won't get a big screen-shaped hole in any cheaper variant.

The dials and general ergonomics are spot-on, and there's that nicely weighted feel and tactility that is generally referred to as 'premium'. Basically, it all works like you think it should; nothing snaps off and someone thought to damp things you touch, or cover them in expensive-feeling materials.

Underneath, it could be made of Play-Doh, but the interior tells you it's not, so you believe that all the bits you can't see are as sorted. Even the general size feels about right, and the ride height feels high enough to be interesting and advantageous, but low enough not to feel like you're helming a cruise liner from the poop deck.

It even punts along with a surprising turn of speed and fluidity. The smaller engines make the best fist of the Q5 - if you're going to go for a big engine, you might as well have the Q7 and add the space. Indeed, according to Audi, the 2.0-TDi will make up 77 per cent of all Q5 orders in the UK. Which is no bad thing really. Every model is certainly more accomplished than a Land Rover Freelander 2 HSE, though the Landy would eat the Q5 for breakfast off-road, confirming the disconcerting feeling that this really is a baby Q7.

So that means well-sorted, but heavy-feeling in the lower third, the car equivalent of a Weeble, or one of those lifeboats that self-right. The only problem I can see is that where the Q7 makes a huge statement by virtue of being, well, huge, the Q5 isn't actually all that striking. It's handsome enough, and dressed in the optional 20-inch rims, or the inevitable S-Line sports kit, it looks perfectly acceptable, but it doesn't quite have the impact of its big brother or the delicacy of something noticeably smaller.

There's an appeal here, though, Audi giving customers even less reason to devolve themselves away from the brand into something that suits their more specific niche requirements. It's a good, if slightly predictable response to the small premium SUV market. It hasn't got any major bugbears, but similarly, it won't light too many fires.

It's one of Audi's solid-but-strangely-unremarkable products, the ones where it becomes increasingly difficult to pick fault, but there's a defined lack of character to fill in the gaps. Audi probably knows that, hence the predilection for exciting words in all the press material. Somehow I think that Audi doth protest a little too much. Good car, but don't believe the hype.

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