It's the same thing with the 2009 Audi Q5. $50,000 will put your rump in vast automotive acreage, but for the same coin, the Q5's dimensions are tidy. Combating the "quantity equals quality" mindset, Audi has made the Q5 a standout. It's filled with luxury and comfort items, and put together with typical German fastidiousness. And out on the road, the Q5 chats you up with feedback that's – dare we say – sports-like. So has Audi managed to finally put the "sport" in Sport Utility?
Styling-wise, the Q5 is unmistakably Audi. Without carefully looking, it could be mistaken for its larger Q7 brother, if only ran through a clothes dryer. Initial inspection led your humble narrator to believe that the Q5 shares its underpinnings with Volkswagen's similarly-sized Tiguan, when in fact, the Q5 is based on the A4/A5's Modular Longitudinal Platform. Relatively compact, the Q5's lines share the recent Audi family style, which suggests constant forward motion by playing light along the surface detailing in a raked manner; lower in front than in back, like a modern, Teutonic hot rod.
The sculpted form is subtle and controlled, not over-muscled or gratuitously flared to look like some kind of U.N. Peacekeeping vehicle. The Q5 nevertheless blends in with the noise created by America's booming two-box pseudo-truck market. It's nicely styled and clean looking, but there's only so many places the form factor can go without being overly radical. Everyone knows what a Hummer looks like, and the H1, H2 and H3 share that style. The Q5, too, looks like an Audi crossover should, it's just a much less bold outpost of the styling world.