Great Audi A5

The Audi A5 has been hailed as a design masterpiece in various quarters. Arguing the point is pointless; if an enthusiast loves a car’s sheet metal, nothing a reviewer can say will alter the machine’s aesthetic appeal. So here are my two bits: the A5 lacks the minimalist classicism that elevated its predecessors to art. The A5’s gangsta greenhouse is too fly for a white guy, the swage line is too swoopy AND too angular, the flame surfacing is forced and I will never forgive Audi for NOT modifying their Billy The Big Mouth Bass maw for U.S. license plates. Admittedly, the A5 is drop dead sexy from the rear. But I’ve never been much of an ass man. So there you go.

Black Audi A5

The interior region of the Audi A5 coupe is well dressed with various high tech electronic devices. Some of the interiors equipped in the model include carpet located in passenger cabin and trunk area, front carpeted floor mats, leather steering wheel, air conditioning with automatic climate control, leather upholstery, and XM satellite radio.

Elegant Blue Audi A5

Speaking of go, our Quattro press car was motivated by a 3.2-liter six. Longstanding mill delivers max power (265 hp) at a lofty 6500 rpm. But there’s plenty of shove (243 lb•ft) on the down low (3250–5000 rpm). In fact, the direct injection six-pot feels like two engines in one. It’s a torquey beast that wants to shift early; the dashboard display actually tells you to change gears. At the same time, there are professional sewing machines that aren’t as smooth as this engine at wide open throttle. You can rev the be Jesus out of the A5′s power plant, [potentially] accelerating the 3737 pound two-door from zero to sixty in just 5.8 seconds.

Audi A5 JMS
Audi A5 on the Road

The A5 six-speed manual transmission is, as TTAC reviewer Jack Baruth put it, “not Audi’s finest hour.” Less diplomatically, it’s crap. A ponderous clutch and a light throw create a major pistonhead buzz-kill. Just for [no] fun, there’s also a dead zone between the gears, which slot home with all the precision of three-year-old’s coloring. It’s virtually impossible to make a smooth one-two shift in the A5, no matter where you are in the rev range. You end up shifting at low rpms just to be done with it. Given the A5 cog swapper’s suckitude, the tiny percentage of Americans who can operate a stick shift, and the fact that Audi has access to the world’s best transmission, Ingolstadt should have fitted all A5s with DSG and called it good. The A5′s manual gearbox is the dynamic definition of not good.

Great Black Audi A5
Audi A5 Interior