2012 Audi A7 Sportback Road Test Review

By Bob Plunkett

Our 2012 Audi A7 Sportback -- the latest clever concept from Audi of Germany -- carries a badge of A7 and slots into the mid-size class in configuration with a 2+2 cockpit and four doors for passengers plus a tail-side portal.

With a low roofline and integrated rear doors, the A7 looks sleek and swift like a curve-craving coupe, yet it provides the four cabin doors of a practical sedan and carves out additional cargo room in the hind quarters like a functional wagon.

It's as if Audi's designers tossed a coupe, sedan and wagon into a gigantic blender and mixed all ingredients until the sleek A7 emerged.

Then Audi stocks the A7 with serious performance hardware including a powerful engine enhanced with supercharger and an eight-speed Tiptronic automatic shifter plus electronics governing all aspects of the car's dynamic movements as well as communications, navigation, comfort, even entertainment.

A super-rigid structure blends lightweight aluminum body panels with a steel frame.

And weight-saving aluminum components make the suspension, tuned and tweaked for precise and predictable action, feel light and lively, while Audi's Quattro all-wheel-drive (AWD) system for traction at every wheel sets up the tire grip of a sidewinder snake in sand.

Using a self-locking center differential with rear-biased torque split, the Quattro device automatically shifts the majority of all engine torque to whichever wheels, front or rear, attain the best bite of traction. FULL REVIEW