Audi reinvents A7 for 2016

IF you’re looking for a handsome, curvaceous car that is capable in all kinds of weather, check out the A7. Its sole powertrain is a 333-hp 3.0-liter supercharged V-6, with all-wheel drive and an eight-speed automatic. Tastefully appointed with first-rate materials, the interior is one of the best in the industry. Handling is responsive, brakes are powerful. It may be pricey, but it’s worth it.
As you’d expect at its price point and available specifications, the Audi A7 delivers generous helpings of comfort and performance, making it automotive self-indulgence of a pretty high order.
But that’s not what sets it apart; there are many cars in this class that, in varying degrees, provide exactly the same. What makes the A7 special is that it’s one of those rare pieces of kinetic sculpture that makes its owner grateful for the gift of eyesight.
Audi assigns the A7 to that growing class called “four-door coupes,” which has made “coupe” a word that’s becoming almost as elasticand one that is equally nonsensicalas “crossover.” According to Brother Webster, a coupe is “a closed, two-door automobile.” This car has four doors, and like its fraternal twin the A6, it is in actuality a sedanalbeit here with a rear hatch.
The styling element that sets apart the A7 and others of this vehicle typethe Mercedes-Benz CLS and the BMW 6-series Gran Coupe, sayis a roofline that slopes away aft of the B-pillar, culminating in a fast backlight. It’s a design element common to most contemporary coupes, thus apparently justifying the stretch to include cars with four doors.
Semantics notwithstanding, Audi’s execution of this design is the best of the bunch, and we’re pleased to see that in this 2016 freshening Ingolstadt has had the good sense to refrain from making any major changes. The grille isn’t quite so assertive as was the 2015 model’s, the LED headlights and the taillights take on more of a squint, and the exhaust outlets become rectangular. That’s pretty much it for aesthetic alterations.
The A7 is a big car, and it feels bigbut never ponderous. Responses to the helm are prompt, body roll is modest, and if the steering is lifeless at a parking-lot pace, it acquires the right level of effort and respectable accuracy as speeds increase. Typical for a big, all-wheel-drive car, when pushed hard the A7 will exhibit progressive understeerthis is not an autocross weaponbut is totally predictable in its manners, free of any real vices, and smooth even on gnarly surfaces.
Braking is powerful and fade free, with good stopping distances (166 feet from 70 mph), although we’ve seen better in other A7s. We put this down to our test car’s Continental ProContact TX (265/35-20) all-season tires.