Check Out the 2025 Audi Q9 Morphing Into a Worthy BMW X7 Rival Before Your Eyes

Luckily, there's one new Audi that will avoid the naming confusion because it's an all-new, first-ever presentation: Q9. No worries, there will be a different sort of confusion because the flagship crossover SUV is allegedly set to implement Audi's first foray into the dreaded split-headlight age. The Ingolstadt-based automaker recently revived its design team for the fresh RS 6 Avant GT that serves as the pinnacle of Ingolstadt-based station wagons in just 660 worldwide units.

But now it seems they're overzealous if we are to believe the rumor mill and our spy photographer partners, which recently caught the Audi Q9 testing in a frozen landscape while clad in heavy camouflage. What it didn't bother to hide was the split headlight styling, which is set to debut on the largest high-riding model the company has ever built to take on the Mercedes-Benz GLS and especially the BMW X7.

As it turns out, the years of rumors are finally paying off, and Audi will try to shake up the premium full-size crossover SUV sector with the Q9. Thanks to the extra-large grille, another spied prototype was instantly recognizable as an Audi, and even better, the four exhaust tips pointed toward the existence of an SQ9 from the get-go. It could launch with three rows to help it attract an audience in the United States, for example, and gasoline plus mild hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrain options should be a particular fixture, as per tradition with VW AG representatives.

Now, because some folks may be a little more impatient than Audi wants them, the imaginative realm of digital car content creators has taken over the task of showcasing the model's hypothetical looks. Even better, Marouane Bembli, a virtual artist better known as TheSketchMonkey on YouTube, is keen on unofficially bringing to CGI life the 2025 or 2026 Audi Q9 SUV right before our eyes as he took the recently facelifted Audi Q7 and morphed it quickly into the upcoming, larger Q9. As a bonus, he also transformed it into an e-tron at the very end, just to cover all possibilities.

So, do you think that will be the case – an enlarged Q7 with split headlights and the same architecture underneath or is Audi going to present something completely new and different to make sure it can efficiently oppose the Mercedes-Benz GLS and potentially get mistaken for a quirky BMW X7? Also, is this new Audi interesting enough to persuade Americans against buying popular stuff like the Chevrolet Traverse or Jeep Wagoneer?