Should you buy one?

We like the Audi A5 Sportback, and it’s easy to understand its popularity. It’s a sleek family hatchback with coupe attitude that’s practical and beautifully finished inside. The Sportback does a lot of things very well, but it’s also getting on and lags behind its key rivals in a number of areas, making it a flawed but characterful choice for your money.

It looks great, inside and out its practical, fast and fun to drive. But it’s expensive, cramped in the back and lacking in standard equipment. The BMW 4 Series Gran Coupe is a sharper steer, and the new one promises to open up the gap even further. However, the Audi’s beautifully-finished interior and highly-appealing trim options, such as Black Edition and Vorsprung, mean that there are many reasons to choose it… even if it’s not the sharpest steering car in the box.

The Quattro four-wheel drive version is the best all-rounder, with the most balanced handling and the security of great all-weather grip. But considering you get all of that in a cheaper A4, but without the coupe-inspired styling on purely objective grounds, perhaps the inflated price of the A5 Sportback is hard to justify.

What we like

The interior quality is superb, and although the infotainment and controls are not Audi’s latests, we really like this layout. It’s highly stylish with more than enough practicality for most families, and is great for long-distance travel.

What we don’t like

It doesn’t drive quite as well as the BMW 4 Series Gran Coupe, and is coming up for replacement.