Coupe crossovers are so sizzling proper now. The BMW X4 and X6 and the Mercedes GLC and GLE dot American roadways like paint traces, inescapable of their omnipresence, however all of them have two issues. First, they lower down on cargo house relative to their squared-off siblings. Second, and most significantly, they seem like sizzling rubbish.
Few producers get the coupe-crossover proper. The Porsche Cayenne Coupe and Ford Mustang Mach-E, with their blacked-out rooflines, really echo their manufacturers well-known two doorways — the 911 and Mustang — with out sacrificing rear seat headroom. However just one combines practicality and elegance with no color-specific cheat: The Audi Q8.
Full Disclosure: Audi shipped me out to Utah to drive 4 crossovers (and experience one mountain bike) abruptly. The Q7, SQ7, Q8, and SQ8 have all been calmly up to date, and between the smaller modifications and shorter drives these opinions seemingly gained’t be the 1,600-word epics you’ve come to anticipate from my byline. Audi paid for my transportation, lodging, and meals.
Audi will let you know that the Q8 is visually impressed by the basic box-flared Sport Quattro coupe, which is plausible in the event you squint. No, tougher than that. A little bit bit extra. Are your eyes utterly closed? Excellent, don’t the 2 automobiles look precisely the identical now?
Facetiousness apart, similarities between the 2 are few. The Q8 has fender flares, positive, and you may persuade me that the D-pillar is an intentional homage relatively than an aerodynamic coincidence, however styling heritage past these two factors appears to start and finish at “is available in pink.”
Whereas the Q8 might not be a rally coupe, it’s a handsome car in its personal proper. So many producers attempt to mimic coupe traces on crossovers with rear-end curves, however Audi’s angular method works higher. The Q8 won’t ever be mistaken for a 911, but it surely doesn’t must be. It appears to be like good for what it’s.
From a facet profile, anyway. The rear appears to be like pleasing too, however the up to date entrance finish for 2024 falls even deeper into the “completely no paint allowed forward of the entrance fenders” development that’s taken so many automakers in recent times. Please, I urge you, my life for a entrance finish design that isn’t simply All The Grille All The Time.
All that sporty pretension within the Q8’s styling is supposed to persuade the driving force they’re in one thing aside from a 5,000-lb crossover, however the driving expertise doesn’t do a lot to distinguish the automobile from its three-row Q7 sibling. The coupe-crossover could really feel a contact nimbler, however even Audi doesn’t declare a distinction from the Q7’s 5.5 seconds to 60 mph.
The Q8 does drop the two-liter base engine from the larger automobile, as an alternative beginning with the three-liter V6, but it surely nonetheless comes with a value enhance over the Q7’s V6 choice. That doesn’t make the Q8 a performance-oriented car, it simply means it lacks its sibling’s inexpensive base-model choice.
In coupe-crossovers, nevertheless, efficiency isn’t the precise title of the sport. You’re unlikely to see a Q8 at your subsequent monitor day, except it’s being pushed by a nook marshal, however you might even see one fly previous you on the freeway at unsafe speeds.
At that real-world objective, the Q8 excels. It’s oddly excessive on tire noise by means of its acoustically-sealed glass, however maybe that’s merely a reminder that you simply’re within the sporty one. As soon as the cooled seats kick in, although, and the massagers slowly work out the kinks in your again as you hurtle alongside your native interstate, you’ll neglect all about that.
The choice to buy a Q8 is solely an aesthetic one. To contemplate this automobile is to acknowledge that every part in its phase will get the job carried out, take you and the youngsters to work and faculty and Wegmans and again, and them merely select together with your eyes. Is that the mathematically, spec-sheet savvy solution to buy a automobile? Completely not. However in the event you like what you see, once you park your automobile and switch again for one final look on the best way into the workplace, does the spec sheet matter?
