Audi’s SQ7 Black Edition weighs nearly 2.4 tonnes and still shrugs off a chicane. It’s part luxury cruiser, part V8 bruiser, and never fully commits to either.
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Audi’s SQ7 Black Edition weighs nearly 2.4 tonnes and still shrugs off a chicane. It’s part luxury cruiser, part V8 bruiser, and never fully commits to either.
Physics dominates carmaking. Probably more accurately, and relevant to this review, overcoming said physics is what you’re paying the big bucks for. And this here, Audi’s relatively unassuming SQ7, is what happens when engineers crunch the numbers to make a near-2.3-tonne SUV light-science-defying reading, while doing so in luxury.
I don’t particularly want to delve too deeply into the obligatory styling context, but you could probably have surmised that this is the SQ7 Black Edition. The status-indicating shiny bits have been lathered in black for a R34,500 premium, giving it a more… menacing stance. It is, therefore, the priciest Q7 you can buy, while the prefixed S badge places it on the warm-but-not-quite-scalding rung of the fast Audi SUV ladder, underneath the exceptionally fast RS Q8, which can rip you a new one should your attention wander for even a split second.
Inside, it has some telltale signs as to its performance aptitude and resolve for covering distance at speed, while it’s predominantly geared towards luxury. The Valcona leather seats with their ‘S’ embossing and meticulously gorgeous cross-stitching are luxurious, but also firm enough to earn some marks as sporty, while the burgundy-esque colour execution contrasts well with the sportier metallic finishings. This machine-meets-classic-opulence aesthetic shouldn’t work, but it does. Beautifully. And it’s hard to pry your eyes away when you start to notice all the granular details.
What I really want to harp on about is its ability to simultaneously straddle the aforementioned luxury and outright performance without ever fully committing to either. Strange compliment, considering that under normal circumstances we commend a car for one or the other, but hardly ever for dipping a toe in both. Bear with me here…
Under the bonnet is a 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8 engine producing 373kW and 770Nm, which can send the SQ7 to 100km/h in 4.1 seconds. Remember that this is a two-something-tonne SUV. As for how, Audi’s engineers placed both turbochargers and their respective water-cooled intercoolers inside the hot-vee, which results in shorter paths for the intake air. The result is faster responses from the loud pedal. In its Dynamic mode, the entire car feels tightly wound even when idling. Press down on the right-side pedal, and the rear gently squats as all four wheels grip, sending it hurtling toward the horizon.
For the better part of the week, though, I kept it dialled into Efficiency mode, only occasionally asking it to deliver that 373kW on short notice. Here, it calls on a cylinder-on-demand system that deactivates four cylinders by shutting down valve and injector operation between 160 and 250Nm. It becomes somewhat calm, with that deactivation also calming the burble otherwise emanating from the rear as it reverts to a comfortable, luxurious cruiser. It almost lulls you into a state of contentment, and you bag small victories in seeing the digital instrument binnacle register low fuel figures. On one very calm highway drive, without traffic, I got it under 10l/100km. The rest of my test was largely spent trying to get its 13-something litres-per-100km drinking habit down to manageable numbers. It’s not necessarily difficult to drive it calmly, but eventually, willpower gives out, and you’ll realise its full potential is a mere drive-mode button press coupled with a right-footed caress away.
I wake all eight cylinders for some familiar sweeps. It trades its docile, easy-going demeanour for its full potential in an instant. Deep down, I know this should be a completely hare-brained exercise to coerce an SUV of this stature through the same flowing, chicane-like section where I’ve seen many a lighter car lose composure. But Audi’s behemoth stays collected for the most part. It’s almost too easy, something we’ve seen with the RS Q8 that flipped the bird to the physics script. But this is an ‘S’. It doesn’t have the weight of expectation that comes part and parcel with RS… and yet it grips, it communicates and responds well to every general demand.
In large part, it’s down to Audi’s eAWS (electromagnetic roll stabilisation) with a 48-volt system that works to eliminate body roll, while standard-to-the-SQ7 rear-wheel steering rotates the rears to aid agility. The latter works subtly enough that I didn’t experience that sliding rear, oversteery feel that’s often associated with rear-wheel-steering assistance.
The digital interfaces aren’t necessarily pretty in the same sense as the upholstery, but they are logically laid out and quick to grasp. In fact, I rate this infotainment system as one of the best in the business, as the phone-to-system connection didn’t drop once during my week-long tenure. But the climate touch console, located beneath the infotainment system, is showing its years. It felt novel when I first encountered it in the RS7, but now, not so much. Sure, it’s easy to knock, but the perfect solution to what should be an ideal approach by all reasonable standards is not so easy to find. I don’t care much for screen-embedded controls, and physical controls may be detrimental to an otherwise minimalist approach. I’m getting off topic, though.
In large part, it’s down to Audi’s eAWS (electromagnetic roll stabilisation) with a 48-volt system that works to eliminate body roll, while standard-to-the-SQ7 rear-wheel steering rotates the rears to aid agility. The latter works subtly enough that I didn’t experience that sliding rear, oversteery feel that’s often associated with rear-wheel-steering assistance.
Then again, the Audi SQ7 straddles two worlds. One of luxury, and one in which its performance potential is safeguarded by a mere button press and an ankle movement. It undeniably carries its weight more in luxury than outright performance (the RS badge still needs to serve a purpose, after all), but when you call on its full breadth of capability, it hardly ever leaves you wanting a helping of R to complement the S. And that’s the beauty of engineering, isn’t it? You can have speed fulfilment in a luxury package, even when 2.4 tonnes of physics says otherwise.
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