Do 4/5-Door Coupés Actually Work?
Is it really possible to buy a practical coupé?
More than a decade ago it was simple, if you buy a beautiful coupé then you sacrifice practicality, but Mercedes thought, "Why not build a 4 door car with coupe body style?". Thanks to the original Mercedes CLS, many luxury automakers now produce cars that are as sexy as coupés and as practical as saloons, but does it really work? Fortunately, I think I've got the answer after spending some time with the all new Audi A5 Sportback.
The Looks
No doubt that the combination of a low car with wide fenders and a sleek racy roofline looks absolutely fabulous, but has the addition of two extra doors ruined the looks of the coupé? The simple answer is no, as I've mentioned in the Top 10 4-Door Coupés of 2018 article I've posted a while back. As a matter of fact, the addition of the two extra doors on the A5 Sportback forced the manufacturer to give the car a smoother roofline with gentler curve to make room for the second row passengers, and the results? The A5 Sportback isn't just more practical than the A5 coupé, but the sleek curves now give the car a more streamlined and attractive look.
However it is important to mention that the A5 Coupé and Sportback isn't the best looking amongst all its rivals. It's a bit bland, and isn't as flamboyant as a proper coupé.
Practicality
2-door coupés are deemed impractical and absolutely pointless, especially with 4-door saloons starting to look just as interesting and as sporty, but how does the A5 Sportback compare to the Audi A4, or the more stylish Mercedes-Benz C-Class? To begin with, the A5 is a 5-door hatchback so accessing the boot is easier. The boot capacity is nearly identical to the Audi A4's and the Mercedes C-Class' with 480 litres. Compared to the A4, the A5 Sportback is 0.6 inches down on leg room, however it still is very comfortable for a 6 foot person. The headroom isn't so bad either, where the one who'd suffer from the most cramps will be the middle seat passenger.
Performance
The A5 Sportback comes with a wide range of engines all of which come straight from the A4 range. The smallest of which is the 1.4-litre TFSI engine that produces just 150 horsepower delivered to the front wheels only. I wouldn't advise you to buy the under-powered 1.4-litre, instead, you should consider the more powerful 2.0-litre TFSI unit with 250 horsepower, all-wheel-drive and a smooth 7 speed automatic gearbox. And if its still not enough, Audi has you covered with two performance models, the S5 and the RS5 Sportback.
Audi S5 with aftermarket exhausts and rims.
The Suspension of the whole Audi A5 range is more on the comfort side, including the performance oriented S5 and RS5 Sportback. The car glides over bumps in "Comfort" mode and will give you a more dynamic feel when in "Dynamic" mode. Unlike previous performance Audis though, the S5's and RS5's suspension system does not totally eliminate body roll, yet the car feels reasonably nimble around corners and the body roll contributes to the less understeer as part of the steering force is used to make the car lean to the side.
The gearbox too is on the comfort side. All models come with automatic transmissions, simply because they are gentle and smooth in the city at low speeds. As for the performance oriented RS5 model, it too has a conventional automatic gearbox with a torque converter instead of a sharper dual clutch setup. Apparently the dual clutch couldn't handle all the power produced by the 2.9-litre twin turbo charged V6 engine.
Should you buy one?
If you are looking for a car in 40-50k price range, but you don't want a boring saloon car or a crappy SUV, I think you should buy a 4/5-door coupé
The Audi A5 Sportback range packs style with everyday usability and comfort. It might not win the prettiest car award, but it does the job of being an interesting cool alternative for a saloon car. I can't find a reason why not to buy this lovely machine.
Can you think of any reason why not to buy an Audi A5 Sportback?
#audi #audia5 #audia5sportback #a5 #a5sportback #rs5 #rs5sportback
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Comments (25)
A coupé have to have 2 doors. Otherwise it isn't a coupé
They aren't really coupès, you're right. By definition a coupè is a car with a sloping roof, two doors and a fixed roof. But I think its fair to call these cars "4 door coupés" as they seem to fit the description apart from the "two doors" bit. In...
Read moreBMW has their the 4 door variants of the 4 and 6 series called Gran Coupés
I might consider the Mazda RX-8 a coupe, but not these Audis, Mercs and the like.
They aren't really coupès, you're right. By definition a coupè is a car with a sloping roof, two doors and a fixed roof. But I think its fair to call these cars "4 door coupés" as they seem to fit the description apart from the "two doors" bit. In...
Read morePlus, BMW has their the 4 door variants of the 4 and 6 series called Gran Coupés
To work, they first need to exist, which they don't.
They aren't really coupès, you're right. By definition a coupè is a car with a sloping roof, two doors and a fixed roof. But I think its fair to call these cars "4 door coupés" as they seem to fit the description apart from the "two doors" bit. In...
Read morePlus, BMW has their the 4 door variants of the 4 and 6 series called Gran Coupés
Why do two doors Coupé are deemed impractical?
They aren't as practical for example, second row seats can barely fit your 10 year old boy, and they only seat 4 instead of 5, the boot space isn't as spacious as their saloon siblings. But some coupés are a bit more practical but still with no...
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