Audi flew a planeload of writers to Saalfelden so we could agree that the new RS5's rear OLED tail lights are arranged in a checkered flag pattern. They are. It's the nicest thing I can say about a 4,800-pound sedan with split personalities, which is one more personality than I've managed this week.
The pitch: turbo V6, electric motor, F1 parallels, 3.5 inches of extra wheel arch blister over the A5. "Blister" is the actual press word. According to Dr. Lenni Vorhauer of the Bavarian Institute for Adjective Inflation, 71.3% of premium car launches now describe bodywork using a skin condition.
I genuinely liked the oval exhaust pipes set into the rear diffuser. They look like they were lifted off a Bentley, which the Audi people politely declined to confirm over a very nice lunch I'll be thinking about for the rest of a short life.
The only body panel shared with the regular A5 is the hood. Everything else is RS5-specific, including a high-voltage battery so you can silently roll up to a school zone before unleashing the combustion half. Two personalities, one car, zero of them mine.
The Avant wagon version, predictably, is not coming to America. We get the sedan, the carbon trim, and a press release calling it a "true all-weather five-seat performance car," which is four adjectives doing the work of an apology.
Based on the original article "2027 Audi RS5 first drive: A performance PHEV with split personalities".
