AUDI A7 SPORTBACK

Driven

It’s a sedan! It’s a coupe! It’s a . . . wagon?

SA R D I N I A , I TA LY

H E M E R C E D E S - B E NZ C L S G E T S credit for leaping t one rung up the coolness chart solely by virtue of how good it looks. Mercedes calls it a coupe, even though that implies it’s a two-door car that’s shorter than the sedan upon which it was based. It is neither.

If you’ve snickered at Mercedes-Benz’s designation, get a load of this: Audi is also calling its 2012 A7 Sportback a coupe.

In this case, it’s even more misleading, since the A7 isn’t a sedan—it’s (gasp!) a four-door hatchback. That means the marketing folks in Ingolstadt think Audi has created a vehicle so attractive that its looks alone can rescue it from the humiliation of being called a wagon, blowing straight past the mundane moniker of sedan and boosting it right into the chic coupe category.

Did it work? Well, did your eyes just wander back to the photos to take another confused look at the sexy rear end? We bet they did. And we bet you’ll agree that the A7 is just as good-looking as the CLS, hatch or not.

The fact is, we’re huge fans of hatchbacks. Thanks to its derriere’s design, the A7 performs one trick no CLS can do: at the push of a button, its motorized rear hatch ascends, revealing a cargo hold large enough to sleep two six-footers comfortably with the rear seats folded—and no contortionist training required. Placing a body in the trunk of the Mercedes, like those of other formal sedans, generally requires gags and a rope.

When the seats aren’t folded down, the A7’s rear quarters are bright and roomy, with plenty of headroom. Like the CLS, it seats only four, although that’s likely a marketing decision rather than an engineering restriction—the center of the rear

The A7’s slightly droopy butt is punctuated by a spoiler that rises automatically at speed. The spoiler is surely a functional necessity, as it’s not pretty when viewed from behind. bench contains no console or hump to prevent someone from sitting there comfortably. Only the seatbelt is missing.

There are two cylinders missing from the engine compartment, too—at least compared with the CLS. As penance, the 3.0-liter V-6 is supercharged, and an eight-speed automatic transmission transfers power to the standard Quattro all-wheel-drive system.

The automatic isn’t available in Europe, where the A7 comes with either front-wheel drive and a CVT or all-wheel

drive and the seven-speed dual-clutch automatic from the S4. European buyers also get to choose among three additional V-6 engines—two turbo-diesels and a normally aspirated gasoline 2.8-liter.

During our test in Italy, we weren’t able to sample a U.S.-spec 3.0T with the conventional automatic, but there’s little question that we’ll be getting the best powertrain combination. The eight-speed has proved its mettle in the fl agship A8, and although there’s nothing really wrong with the dual-clutch unit, it doesn’t do a particularly convincing job of matching a torque converter’s smoothness when gliding away from a stop or maneuvering slowly. The diesels are powerful and e cient but su er from extreme o -idle turbo lag.

The A7 is constructed partially of aluminum, and Audi’s spec sheet shows a curb weight of 4100 pounds for the European 3.0T Quattro dual-clutch model. Despite the mass, the V-6 manages a very respectable 5.6-second run to 62 mph—who needs a V-8?—and it delivers its punch without excessive revs, vibrations, or any unpleasant noises. Wind noise is kept to a bare minimum, too, with optional dual-pane glass.

Rolling on optional twenty-inch wheels, our A7 test car performed magnifi cently on mountain roads, generating sport-sedan grip levels thanks to aggressive 265/35YR-20 Yokohama Advan Sport summer tires. With stability control disabled, the A7 showed a penchant for drifting through Sardinia’s wide tra c circles with perfectly neutral chassis balance—not a cornering attitude you often fi nd in front-heavy Audis. The attitude adjustment comes, in part, courtesy of an optional torque-vectoring rear di erential and a new fasteracting, lighter, and more e cient center di .

Should an A7 drift series not materialize, this Audi will have to sell itself on its looks, inside and out, and that should be no problem. The interior is, in a word, beautiful, especially with Audi’s optional multilaminar wood trim. Using layers of cross-cut light oak, it has a horizontal stripe e ect, giving the cabin a cool, modern, almost Scandinavian feel. The navigation screen remains hidden until you need it (which is most of the time, since its MMI interface controls almost everything else) and can display 3-D bird’s-eye Google Maps images. And, of course, the thundering, optional Bang & Olufsen stereo system features motorized tweeters that mesmerize as they rise from the dash top. Although the latest version of MMI features a touch pad to hasten navigation entries, the A7 otherwise takes a slight step backward in ergonomics. A new menu structure requires that you take your eyes o the road more than before, and there are now two sets of buttons surrounding the circular controller, confusingly arranged in the same square pattern. The engine-start button and

It’s smooth to the touch, but the optional wood trim is made from layers of oak veneer sandwiched together.