The best sporting family car I have had the good fortune to run has gone back to its keeper, and the Prosser household is not pleased about it. Of course not – for seven months we have traveled in style and comfort in a car that did the seemingly impossible: it provided the power of a high-performance car with almost none of the compromises. And now it’s gone.
I say almost none because of course there were a couple of trade-offs. Like 30mpg thirst – a little better on the motorway, worse around town or on a charge – and the £68,555 sticker price. There’ll be other running costs that the owner of an average family estate car wouldn’t encounter, but in terms of comfort, refinement and ease of use, this was a sporting car without compromise. That is the genius of the Audi S5 Avant.
And when its family duties were done and it was just me, the car and a good stretch of road, it was excellent to drive. I still have reservations about its steering, which isn’t as sharp or responsive as I’d like, but the rest was superb. Its supple ride on adaptive dampers made light work of poor road surfaces yet body control was strong, grip and traction were vast, and it even showed some decent balance. On corner entry you could feel the car pivot eagerly about you, while on the way out the four-wheel drive system and the rear differential would drive you away from the apex not with armfuls of oversteer, but with a certain agility.
