Audi Q3 Sportback review: Looks like Coupe SUVs are here to stay

Coupe SUVs are little other than vanity projects for both manufacturer and buyer.

This week we get to try the Audi Q3 Sportback and, given the history of the Ingolstadt brand, you’d be right in suspecting that this is a premium contender in the segment.

Audi Q3 Sportback
Rating	★★★★☆
Price	from €51,970 - €60,288 as tested
Engine	1.5-litre petrol engine with mild hybrid functionality
The Spec	pretty thorough, but add-ons add up quickly
Verdict	one of the better efforts considering the dubious conceptuality of the Coupe SUV breed

We have been humouring ourselves – and hopefully you too, dear reader – in recent times by equating the phenom known as the ‘Coupe SUV’ with the work of the devil, old Nick himself.

On the basis that such cars are becoming ever-more commonplace, however, it cannot simply be that it is only narcissists and the vainglorious who are going and lashing out wads of their hard-earned on these beasts.

No, it would appear that the scourge on humanity that is the coupe SUV has found favour with a wider audience and their growing popularity reflects that state of affairs. So, if these things are indeed the hellish answer to being a stylish and fashionable SUV owner, it seems they are not in any way a faddish thing and are, in fact, here to stay.

That being the case, we here at Examiner Motoring have to accept the fact, swallow it and simply do our best on your behalf to sort the wheat from the chaff. This week we get to try the Audi Q3 Sportback and, given the history of the Ingolstadt brand, you’d be right in suspecting that this is a premium contender in the segment.

In truth, though, there are very few non-premium coupe SUVs out there and while it might be fair game to lambast companies for making impractical versions of what are essentially supposed to be very practical things, their existence still has to be accepted. In car-maker language the coupe SUV becomes something which is “style oriented” and if that’s what the punters want, that’s what the car makers will give them.

In the case of the Audi, the nomenclature of this car doesn’t follow predictable trends; that means unlike BMW, whose coupe version of the X3, became the X4, the coupe version of the Q3 is not the Q4 (which is a different vehicle altogether and an electric to boot) but has the ‘Sportback’ appendage attached instead.

The car itself differs visually from the regular Q3 in that it has the coupe-style sloping roofline car makers seem so hell-bent on making us want to want. Dimensionally, however, it differs little from the regular Q3 in that it is only 16 mm longer and 29 mm lower.

As you might expect, rear headroom does suffer a little because of that roofline profile, but not as much as in other iterations of this concept and – in sheer practicality terms – the car does not lose anything in terms of boot volume, which is the same as the regular Q3 at 530 litres with the seats up.

It is also quite flexible in that the rear seats recline and move fore and aft as well, so you can extend legroom if needed, or create more boot space if that’s what is required. So, for what is conceptually an impractical thing, it is actually quite practical indeed.

The build quality of the interior is well up to Audi’s lofty standards and the materials utilised are top drawer and the brand’s excellent virtual cockpit is close to the top of the class in both design credibility and user-friendliness. You have touchscreen controls for all the infotainment stuff, while you get regular knobs and switches for the climate controls.

All this works very well from an ease-of-use point of view and, by comparison with the regular Q3 there are a few additional décor touches such as the ambient lighting which lights up the ‘Sportback’ badge on the passenger side of the dash. It might seem inconsequential, but it’s a neat touch. So too the three-spoke flat-bottomed leather steering wheel.

As the car has a ‘TFSIe’ designation it means that it is equipped with a mild hybrid system which is useful enough, but the prime numbers are the top speed of 210 km/h and a sharp-ish enough 7.3 second 0-100 km/h time. In the case of the tester, it was fitted with Audi’s six-speed S-Tronic auto and only the front wheels were driven.

Given the relatively small size of the engine, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it might be pushed a little to pull this machine around with anything approaching a bit of zest, but it’s not at all bad and I doubt there’ll be many complaints from drivers on that front. In any event, if you really want the hot tamales here, you can always opt for the – considerably more expensive – RS version which offers 400 bhp.

But the regular TFSIe version is a really nice driving companion and one which offers not only decent performance but also handy enough consumption, which should work out at in the region of 5.1 l/100 km or in the low 50mpgs in pounds, shillings and pence.

The handling is above average as you’d expect from an Audi – even when only in front-drive mode – and there is a little perceptible downside in terms of understeer. The ride is nicely on the stiff side of things which contributes to the handling positives, but without being unnecessarily jiggly for the occupants.

Nineteen-inch twin-spoke alloys contribute to the determined look of the design and did not appear to have any unduly negative effect either or the ride or the handling, in any event, if you’re really picky about this sort of thing you can always opt for the adaptive damper system.

In general, though, the standard offering makes for a very pliant on-road companion and one which demonstrated perfectly acceptable driving manners.

There isn’t much, then to complain about with the Sportback in TFSIe guise and while some – especially in this quarter – will waffle on about the moral dilemma presented by the whole coupe SUV concept, there is still an obvious market for such things and as such, this is obviously one of the better ones out there right now.

Audi has long mastered the art of ‘cachet’ and that is plainly obvious here where you have – whether you like the whole conceptual idea of such cars or not – something which looks very smart and purposeful. Indeed, by the standards of the class, the whole design is pretty well executed.

Standard fare, then, from Audi in that you’ve a reasonably accomplished looker and a pretty decent driver as well. But then, for the bones of sixty grand, that’s the least you should expect.

Audi cannot be condemned for making this car, as could be is the case for so many companies and their coupe SUVs which are little other than vanity projects for both manufacturer and buyer. All they are doing is exploiting the express wishes of the buying public and making a few quid for themselves in the process.

But Audi has managed with considerable elan by the standards of the genre to produce something a little way away from market conformity. And if that might not be a fully ringing endorsement, it is still a lot better than could be said for a majority of these things.

It was supposed to be that the SUV thing was all about functionality and not aestheticism, but the way of the world throws up such anomalies every now and then. With this genus of automotive fulfils all potential markets' states of mind, this isn’t a bad stab from Audi.

Personally, I’d still prefer the regular SUV version but, as the old saying goes – one man’s meat is another’s poison.