Often accused of employing scalable design, the A7 Sportback was probably the only Audi model that managed to stand out from the vehicle range of the Ingolstadt carmaker. Well, at least in a good way because the fat nature of the Q3 crossover also made it quite unique.
But if we stick to sedans, then the Audi lineup is as homogenous as they come. Granted, the A7 wasn't exactly a sedan - it was devised as an answer to Mercedes-Benz's CLS successful four-door coupe and while it borrowed its silhouette, it also came with a liftback. That made assigning a label to the A7 Sportback almost impossible, which is also partly what made it so special.
Unfortunately, the 2018 model looks like it just gave up. It stopped being the rebel, gave up on fighting the system, cut its hair short, put on a suit and simply fell in line. The front end of the new A7 looks just as bland as that of any other modern Audi while its side profile is nowhere near as coupe-ish as we would have liked.
It still has plenty of elements to justify an upgrade from the A6, but that's not so much praise for the A7 as a critique for the medium-sized sedan. It's just not that special vehicle anymore, something the Audi range desperately needed.
How do we know all that from this footage showing completely camouflaged cars? We don't. With the 2018 Audi A7 Sportback set to be released in just two days from now, it essentially pulled a Volvo S90 and got leaked as a scale model almost two weeks ago. Combine that with what these images show and you get a pretty good idea of what's in store for us.
The video shows an ever-growing number of Audi A7s driving in convoy on German roads. A new BMW 5 Series Touring appears to have followed them the entire time while a Mercedes-Benz E-Class was waiting at their muddy destination, but It wouldn't make much sense for Audi to benchmark the A7 against any of these vehicles. Besides, we suspect the German brands know everything there is to know about their competition by heart anyway.
Stay tuned on Thursday for the official reveal, also known as the moment we find out whether our worst fears come true or not. Let's just hope the interior will be its saving grace, even though I feel there's more PR there (Audi was the first brand to talk extensively about its haptic specialists) as well than facts.
"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie) Full profile
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