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 area relative to their squared-off siblings. Second, and most significantly, they appear to be 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 magnificence with out a color-specific cheat: The Audi Q8.
Full Disclosure: Audi shipped me out to Utah to drive 4 crossovers (and journey one mountain bike) all of sudden. The Q7, SQ7, Q8, and SQ8 have all been flippantly up to date, and between the smaller modifications and shorter drives these opinions probably gained’t be the 1,600-word epics you’ve come to count on from my byline. Audi paid for my transportation, lodging, and meals.
Audi will inform you that the Q8 is visually impressed by the traditional box-flared Sport Quattro coupe, which is plausible in case you squint. No, tougher than that. Slightly bit extra. Are your eyes fully 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 reasonably than an aerodynamic coincidence, however styling heritage past these two factors appears to start and finish at “is available in purple.”
Whereas the Q8 is probably not a rally coupe, it’s a handsome automobile 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, nevertheless it doesn’t have to be. It seems good for what it’s.
From a aspect profile, anyway. The rear seems 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” pattern that’s taken so many automakers lately. 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 motive 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 might 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, nevertheless it nonetheless comes with a value improve over the Q7’s V6 choice. That doesn’t make the Q8 a performance-oriented automobile, it simply means it lacks its sibling’s inexpensive base-model choice.
In coupe-crossovers, nevertheless, efficiency isn’t the precise identify of the sport. You’re unlikely to see a Q8 at your subsequent monitor day, until it’s being pushed by a nook marshal, however you may even see one fly previous you on the freeway at unsafe speeds.
At that real-world goal, the Q8 excels. It’s oddly excessive on tire noise by way 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 completely an aesthetic one. To contemplate this automobile is to acknowledge that every little thing in its phase will get the job finished, take you and the children to work and college and Wegmans and again, and them merely select along with your eyes. Is that the mathematically, spec-sheet savvy strategy to buy a automobile? Completely not. However in case you like what you see, whenever you park your automobile and switch again for one final look on the way in which into the workplace, does the spec sheet matter?
