Audi SQ5 Sportback review: Your Q to fly

I GUESS Hugh Jackman is alright looking, but holy smokes, when his shirt comes off you realise his muscles have muscles. The man must eat steroids for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Essentially, the Audi SQ5 Sportback is the Aussie actor on wheels. While also generally easy on the eye, under its crisp clothes it is as brawny as a bull.

If Audi’s high performance world is new to you, the letters “RS” signify the brand’s fastest, loudest and wildest cars (think BMW’s M division or Mercedes-AMG), while “S” models slot between them and the mainstream stuff. That makes the SQ5 Sportback a step up from the Q5 Sportback, if you catch my drift.

People drawn to musclebound cars always want to talk numbers, and the SQ5’s are more than halfway decent. Its twin-turbo V6 chucks out 354 horsepower, which is enough to hurl the Audi to 100 km/h in 5 seconds flat. These days that’s considered more titillating than thrilling, but it’s still mighty impressive for a car that weighs nearly 1.9 tonnes.

Usually you can spot a high performance German car from furlongs away, but chances are you looked at these pics of the SQ5 and wrote it off as just another Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV), albeit one with a fairly swoopy side profile, courtesy of a fastback shape that comes with the Sportback label. There’s precious little to hint at its ability to cling to the backside of a sports car, after all. It’s all too easy to miss the things that mark this out as a hotted-up Audi, such as the silver wing mirror caps or even the scarlet “S” badges. As fast cars go, the SQ5 Sportback is a masterpiece of understatement.

But it’s also a superb piece of engineering. The 3.0-litre V6 isn’t particularly charismatic, but it’s smooth and effective. Press the throttle, savour the cultured note of six cylinders punching harder and faster, and suddenly you’re at speeds that could land you in front of a judge.

The handling likewise offers effectiveness over effervescence. The Audi doesn’t tempt you to chuck it into corners but it does indulge you readily if you happen to be in the mood, with lots of grip and quick steering. Bottom line? The SQ5 isn’t a hell-raiser, but it does have what it takes to keep you company if you have a naughty disposition yourself. 

Otherwise, the Audi is a car with a practical streak. Despite the Sportback shape, the boot is big (at 500 litres) and the rear seats are somehow inhabitable by full-grown adults. The cabin is beginning to look dated in the current era of massive digital screens, but it retains a big crop of neatly laid out buttons and switches, so the controls are a doddle to use.

Indeed, the more time I spent in the car, the more I realised what a superb thing the SQ5 Sportback is to live with on a day-to-day basis. Some of that was down to a few options on the test unit, especially the air suspension (yours for S$4,768), the carbon fibre cabin trim (S$4,916) and the front massage seats (S$1,108). But extras like those only enhance what is already there: a quiet, roomy, comfy car with a quality cabin and a deep well of performance to draw from.

Above all, the SQ5 Sportback is obviously a machine made by people who understand the appeal of having a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The people at Audi S once thought it was a good idea to take the A8, the stateliest of limousines for the fattest of cats, and give it a Lamborghini engine, after all.

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For that reason, the non-Sportback SQ5 might be the one to go for. Its boxier SUV shape is even more incongruous with what it packs under the bonnet. If you’re going for understatedness, why be coy about it?

Audi SQ5 Sportback 3.0 TFSI quattro tiptronic Engine 2,995 cc, V6, turbocharged Power 354 hp at 5,400 to 6,400 rpm Torque 500 Nm at 1,370 to 4,500 rpm Gearbox 8-speed automatic 0-100km/h 5.0 seconds Top Speed 250 km/h (limited) Fuel Efficiency 9.2 L/100 km Agent Premium Automobiles Price S$407,877 with Certificate Of Entitlement Available Now