Detroit Auto Show 2009: Audi Sportsback Concept previews Audi A7

Audi showed it, and what a show off it is, the new Audi Sportsback Concept is a very good preview of what Audi's A7 will look like, which is Audi's take on the Mercedes CLS and BMW's upcoming Concept CS. A highly 'marketize' segment of what are essentially sedans styled like sports cars and dubbed 'Four Door Coupes'.

Of course, showing concepts in car shows, is a very important milestone in all preparation stages of new cars, especially mold breaking ventures into new segments. As comments from industry analysts, veteran car enthusiasts or motoring journalists, all the way to armchair quarterbackers will then be used to finalized the car's initial production version. Of course with facelift versions pre-planned.

First off, rather wholesomely relying on a 'Sloping rear roof' and call it a day's job end, Audi had incorporated some clever solutions into the impracticality of sloping roofs, which greatly undermines rear passenger's headroom space. Which would then result in having to design seats that are more angled and recline in maximizing headroom - at the expense of sacrificing legroom - The unofficial industry benchmark for a vehicle's segment, which then goes a long way into affecting even the pricing of such said vehicles that would have readers burying their heads into some 'motoring journalist's comment of "The Audi A7 had less rear legroom than XXXXX, but costs more at $xxx,xxx etc".

The Audi Sportsback Concept had an entire rear portion of glasshouse integrated with the boot lid, creating a hatchback, which opens up to allow a great deal of handiness in terms of luggage golf bag loading, and if the seats are fully capable in folding down creating a flat surface, hauling capabilities could then be greatly increase.

Of course the folding seats is a far fetch guesstimation, as the press release photos cleverly chose angles that would completely block off views of the interior, nontheless, as plenty of Four Door Coupes would go to the route of enhancing the 'Sportiness' in within simply by opting for a two seater layout for the rear passengers, implying 'Greater Impracticality means Sporting', and two individual seats with a huge dunno-why-they're-there-for rear center console is never known for being able to fold down.

Nevertheless, we think they should have a five seater layout, and going for the extra practicality.

How do we know its a hatchback with a complete opening of the glasshouse and boot lid? As you can clearly see here, there's a shutline along the right C-Pillar shown here. (Of course we do, why else do you think we want to start this auto blog?)



From the rear portion, it's very clear there's a hint of the Lamborghini Estoque Concept reported earlier on, which had the same four seater layout we mentioned earlier. The rear lamps are definitely reminiscent of Audi's recent revamp on its family look of its lineup, gone are those wraparounds that had a clear slope line towards the outer edges, which debuted in the B7 Audi A4, currently still in used in the Audi Q7 and Audi Q5.

Another interesting note is the inclusion of Audi's own Hoffmeister Kink, a BMW tradition, where the window line towards the C-Pillar would suddenly kickback, ending with a rather sporty look as opposed to the bland design of every window line echoing those of the roof's and door line shape.

From the front, of course show cars would warrant the use of 'illegal' lighting systems that's a far cry from what production versions might include; however, do remember that Audi had a long tradition of being bold enough to produce what you say in showrooms, and their record has been rather well upheld, with the Audi TT back in 1995, Audi Nuvolari, which was the creator of the current practiced-around-the-world-HUGE-radiator-grill, and of course, the Audi Lemans concept, that went into production as the Audi R8.

Ok, enough of telling you what you might have know, let's go with what are our feelings with this new Audi A7?

1st - How about the Audi A5 Sportsback? Wouldn't it be a case of a Four Door Coupe as well?

2nd - It doesn't look very good, its not outrageous as the BMW CS or as elegantly obvious as the Mercedes Benz CLS to convince people that its indeed a very special car. And being in the middle, means you'd not get much spotlight about how you look, everyone will just be praising the best and dissing the worst.

3rd - Refer Above: However if it retains those impossible-to-clean vertical grill slabs that ends with a 'Y' split and those headlamps with eyelashes, then they might have a good go with it. But stay positive thou, as Audi never really skimps much from prototype to production.

4th - That triangular plastic waterproof cladding at the rearmost window looks CHEAP.

All in all, we hope there are enough feedbacks in the Detroit Motor Show that would send part of what's discussed here to Audi and get them working on the finer details, that would call for a toast of job well done and number deliveries. Lets wait till they have more information coming up soon.