Price: £25,900
Top speed: 155mph
0-62mph: 6.6 seconds
MPG: up to 74.3
If you were blindfolded (maybe with one of those catlike velvet masks), would you be able to tell what sort of car you were travelling in? Probably not. We may admire the look of our cars, but we hardly ever engage the rest of our senses. Yet they all have their own distinctive smell (in my case, petrol with base notes of mildew and lost sweets). They sound different, feel different and, who knows, probably taste different.
But sit in a premium car with your eyes shut and everything from the hush of the cabin to the tang of the buttery leather and the weighty clunk of the door tells you it’s expensive. Spend more and you get more. Simple. Up to a certain point, anyway. There is a threshold (I’d say £30,000) over which issues of snobbery, scarcity, pedigree and heritage inflate the figure away from good value towards car envy.
So what does Audi’s new A4 feel like? Pretty stonking, actually. It’s more powerful and more intelligent than ever before. It weighs 120kg less than the outgoing model (that’s six packed suitcases not in your boot) and is up to 21% more fuel efficient. In its class it is the most aerodynamic and silent car you can buy. It’s also got the biggest boot. It comes with a range of four- and six-cylinder engines with outputs from 150PS to 272PS. The most remarkable is the 2-litre TDI ultra which produces a perfumed whiff of 99g/km CO2 and a staggering economy of 74.3mpg. You can choose between six-speed manual, or seven- and eight-speed tiptronic transmissions. It has dynamic indicators, which uncurl a row of flashing lights on each side like a big pointy finger.
Inside… well, wow. It’s an exercise in uncompromised pampering. Don’t feel guilty – enjoy it. Inhale the odour of general excellence. The technology options read like a wish list for the chronically risk averse: there’s Audi’s virtual cockpit, predictive efficiency assistant, rear cross-traffic assist, collision-avoidance assist, turn assist and traffic-jam assist. In slow-queuing traffic you can sit back and let the car drive itself without fear of straying from your lane or rear-ending the person in front.
Of all these improvements, it is the car’s handling that makes the greatest leap forward. The suspension and steering filter out all disturbances, such as an uneven road surfaces and potholes, yet somehow manage to create the sensation that you are magnetically stuck to the road. The electromechanical power steering is direct and immediate – almost alarmingly so. It’s an unmistakably mesmerising drive.
You can open your eyes now.
Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter at @MartinLove166
