Audi's Allroad Quattro has always been a rather different yet realistic approach in terms of serving the needs rather than the wants.
Remember the days of SUV craze? Where consumers were buying all sorts of jacked-up-lookalike 4x4s dubbed SUVs? As long as it has four doors, considerable ground clearance and a hatch lid boot, its already the perfect recipe for getting almost anyone signing on the dot of the registration paper.
The sad thing was, off road capabilities were not even mentioned in brochures of alot of such vehicles, not to say plenty of them were only hiked up sedan platforms with FWDs, having no real physical advantage over a station wagon, just a move to please the image conscious who thought station wagons were rather boring and shouts 'I'm married so please count me out on one night stands'
Audi then, took the C5 A6 (1998-2004) station wagon and re-engineered its under chassis, suspension and underbody; coupled with their most notable advantage - Quattro; created the A6 Allroad Quattro. Something that's basically an A6 Station Wagon (In Audictionary, its an Avant) but with higher ground clearance, and a really capable four wheel drive system that could do well in offroading, yet with a sedan chassis that provides exceptional comfort whilst on highways and city driving.
Lighter, more agile than an SUV, yet with better offroad capabilities than plenty of them, the Allroad Quattro carved a niche into the market not from a marketing perspective, but rather an engineering motivated one. With competitors like Volvo soon quickly followed with the Volvo XC70, and Subaru Legacy's Outback.
Now, coming in year 2010, Audi had launched the successor to the Allroad Quattro, but made a sensible, smart decision; putting all those techs into their largest volume seller - The new B8 Audi A4.
Yes, it might seem as if the new Allroad Quattro might be a smaller car now, however, when come to think that the new Audi A4, which in itself is already the class leader in size, wheelbase and length, and at only a mere 7cm shorter than the current 5-Series; its not exactly a small car, and comparing it side by side with the B7 and B6 A4, it is notably much larger, thus there's no worry on whether your kids that used to love your old Allroad Quattro might not fit that well in your new one, given how fast kids grow up.
The reason we find that Audi did the correct positioning, is first and foremost, being an A4, means its alot cheaper, as Allroads are meant to be even more premium than Avants, secondly, this would help new switchers and buyers to hop on Audi's bandwagon. Moreover, the A4 is fairly new, whereas the current A6 C6 is entering its 5th year of service in Ingolstadt, lauching an A6 variant now might not pack up as much hype as an A4.
Of course there are a handful of engine, transmission choice, but its not like we don't know it yet right?
The A4 Allroad Quattro will come with a 65% rear biased Quattro system, coupled with base engines ranging from the 2.0 TDi, 2.0 TFSi and all the way up to the excellent 3.0 V6 TDi which oozes 500nm of torque; and of course, coupled with either a manual or the revolutioning 7-Speed S-Tronic Dual Clutch transmission (DSG), the new Allroad is all ready to find homes in both city dwellers and outback fun seekers.
