Audi A6 C7 Sedan 3.0 TFSI qu S tronic Review: Weight watchers

What we like:

Handsome looks

well built and spacious interior

strong performance

much improved dynamics over its predecessor

lightweight construction

What we dislike:

Transmission hump can be smaller

no 2-litre model yet at launch

No other mass manufacturer does cabins better than Audi and the A6's classy and luxurious interior ambience is another testament to that. It feels expensive, exquisite and special in here thanks to choice materials and surfaces that not only look good but also are tactile and soft to the touch.

The wraparound dashboard is shared with the A7 Sportback's, which we recently tested, which means a nice, driver oriented cockpit feel to the pleasant driving environment. Like in the A7, dashboard and door card inlay options include brilliant looking textured wood that Audi says, is only possible to make thanks to modern technologies.

Like the flagship A8 as well as the A7 Sportback, the A6 comes with Audi's latest MMI Touch operating system. The system is more intuitive to use than before thanks to more logical menus and graphics on the LCD screen that pops gracefully out of the dashboard when the car is started. Cars with MMI touch navigation comes with a touch pad next to the gear lever like on a laptop that you can use to input destinations and addresses into the navigation system by ‘writing' alphabets onto it. Audi says it can recognize the worse of handwritings as well as Chinese characters for the Chinese market. The touchpad is a really impressive feature and is a joy to use and it can even double up as radio preset buttons when not used in navigation mode.

At the rear, occupants will have hardly any complaints about any lack of head and legroom, even on long drives as we discovered when we were driven in the A6 for the 70 odd kilometres, two hour drive to Dubai for dinner during the trip.

Equipment levels for local cars have not been confirmed but expect luxuries and niceties like massage function for the front seats, the interior lighting package, head-up display, adaptive cruise control, Audi park assist, LED tail lamps among other kit to be cost options. Safety is once again high on the A6's agenda - in addition to the plethora of airbags and active driver aids like ESP, it also offers the A8's pre sense safety system as standard to reduce the severity of accidents and their consequences, or even avoid them all together.

Audi Singapore has said that the A6 will be launched here sometime next month with the 2.8 FSI multitronic taking on entry level model duties and going for $230,038 including COE while the 3.0 TFSI quattro driven here will cost $300,038 including COE, making the A6 very competitively priced indeed next to its competitors. From the relatively brief encounter that we had with the A6 in Abu Dhabi, we can safely deduce that the new generation model offers a much more complete and convincing package than its predecessor did, thus giving executive saloon buyers a very tough choice indeed when deciding between it, the 5 Series and the E-Class.

Credits: Story by Raymond Lai in Abu Dhabi Photos by Audi