German Car Zone

Inside & Out:


The latest Audi A4 was evidently designed to give middle managers with kids the chance to drive something akin to the stunning A5 coupé, and from some angles it does exactly that. Problem is, few shapes are as colour dependent as this. In white, the automotive couleur du jour, the A4 is taut and aggressive, but it can look bland in the darker hues and on smaller wheels.

It doesn't use its space very well either, despite augmented proportions. Legroom in the back is shocking with a six-footer in the driving seat, which becomes even more perplexing when you open the boot and see that its floor space apparently occupies half the car's entire length. There's almost too much of it, so why couldn't Audi liberate extra cabin space instead? Maybe it's a design thing?

Elsewhere it's business as usual, a phrase which we use mostly pejoratively. This car arrived on the market some time after the current BMW 3 Series, but it's just not as good. There's nothing wrong with the A4, but you come away with the impression that Audi could have moved the game forward and missed an opportunity. Plus, some areas are a step backwards, like the wheelie bin-spec silver plastic surrounding the satnav screen - incongruous with the rest of the excellent cabin and really disappointing.

But we'll spare a sentence for Audi's praiseworthy, iDrive-trumping Multimedia Interface (MMI), which is intuitive and standard across the range. We'd get the optional Audi Music Interface (AMI) too - a must for iPod owners. Or most people, in other words.



Full Story: The Car Enthusiast - Reviews: Audi A4 2.0 TDI 120 Saloon


M