Category: Compact Executive 
Price Range: £28,760 to £40,265
Quality and solidity, sumptuous cabin, big boot, gutsy 3.0 TDI engine, effective Multitronic transmission.
Feels nose heavy despite new chassis design, unresolved styling, poor rear-seat room.
Lacks a clear personality. Competent in many ways but could have been so much better. The 3.0 TDI Quattro is the best version.
The A5 looks a hefty car, so where did all the space go? On a usefully long-floored boot, partly, but rear-seat passengers suffer. They have to be pretty short not to have their heads jammed against the headlining, although legroom isn't quite so tight. Space up front is excellent, however, be it for people or their chattels. Electric seat adjustment is optional on A5s, standard on the S5, which also gets aluminium door-mirror housings, four instead of two exhaust pipes, painted brake callipers, a toothier front grille and strakes on the sills, among other things.
The frameless doors seal excellently against their rubbers, and you're cocooned well against the outside world - just how well is clear as soon as you open a window. This is a quiet car, the better to enjoy the rich and clear sounds of its top-spec B&O stereo option (albeit without the 'acoustic lens' tweeters you find in an A8, because in the A5 there's insufficient room between facia and windscreen for their breaking-the-surface activation act).
One snag, however, is the ride, which can be harsh over sharp-edged bumps especially with the optional (and best avoided) Sport suspension. There's also an S-Sport version, confusingly, which lowers the ride height by a tiny 5mm. At speed, though, the suspension is well damped and the A5, in whatever form, feels composed.
There's excellent automatic air-conditioning, the latest version of Audi's fairly logical Multi-Media Interface (like iDrive but easier to use), rear parking sensors (essential in this car), an automatically opening boot lid and leather uphostery, among other things.
There's an optional high-end sat-nav including a DVD player and a digital radio, but all A5s have sat nav as standard. They can also have daytime running lights made up of strips of LEDs set in the bottom of the headlights, like an R8's. Various combinations of leather, Alcantara, wood and aluminium adorn the cabin, too.
