Outback limo

What we like:

Excellent body control and ride feel; spacious and practical enough that you’ll want for nothing

What we dislike:

Isn’t the best looking SUV money can buy at the moment

Equipped with a 3.0l supercharged V6 engine churning out 333bhp and 440Nm of torque, the Q7 is quite brisk if you put your foot down hard. There’s a slight lag from the time you floor the accelerator to you feeling like the car is shoving in a hurry, but that could be due to the extremely well insulated cabin that does a very good job of keeping the outside world well, outside.

You get a series of drive modes with Audi Drive Select including some offroad settings that will raise the car’s adaptive air suspension so you don’t tear the underside out over a large rock. How useful that is here I really don’t know; what I do know is that if you switch it over to dynamic, the air suspension will lower the car to make you go faster around a bend.

And boy does that work its magic with this nearly two-tonne tank. The car corners with the precision and agility you’d normally associate with an S5; the chassis feels stiff and controllable even when you force the quattro system to lose its massive amounts of grip. There isn’t even a whole lot of body roll surprisingly; considering the BMW X5 does a fair bit.

Once you’ve had enough fun throwing the car around the twisty back roads just set the car to comfort and enjoy the civilised and plush ride that usually only comes from an A8 type car. The 8-speed tiptronic gearbox shifts smoothly and quickly without ever being intrusive and helps to keep fuel economy figures a little higher by running as low as 850 rpm during cruising.

Dare I say it – the new Q7 could actually be better than the BMW X5 to drive. It’s certainly more futuristic and avant-garde looking on the inside; as far as quality goes it’s hard to pick a winner. And in terms of practicality and absolute plushness of bottom I think the Audi Q7 could just be that bit better. In seriously taking the fight to BMW for driving dynamics and giving the Q7 MPV rivalling space I think Audi might have just given the large SUV a whole new meaning in the context of Singapore.

Credits: Story and Photos by Alvan Sio