Audi’s kerb hopper
Compact new Q2 crossover fills the gap between the A3 hatch and Q3 SUV
ANOTHER day and yet another crossover, you might say, but Audi is all the wiser for plugging every gap that it can in this hip-and-happening world of compact kerb hoppers. On that note, the Q2 certainly seems to have the trendy looks to make it big here, but first let’s size it up.
At 4 190mm in length, it’s closer in size to the A3 Sportback (with which it shares its MQB underpinnings) than it is to the A1 equivalent, and the newcomer is actually slightly wider than the A3, while also riding higher as you’d expect – with 35mm of added ground clearance.
Yet the Q2 looks a lot more funky than the A3 Sportback or its larger Q3 sibling for that matter. Like the A3 three-door, there is a bit of a wedge shape going on in the C-pillar, in an apparent salute to the original Audi Quattro of the 1980s. Its octagonal grille appears chunkier than the noses adorning other modern Audis, while the colour-contrasting C-pillar ‘blade’ panel and single-unit tail lights are also departures from the familiar Audi design idiom.
Inside it looks very similar to the A3 and the materials appear suitably expensive in that typically Audi fashion. Just like the exterior can be glammed up with numerous accessories, the cabin continues the funkification with some bright colour options (such as yellow, orange or red) for inlays, contrast stitching and sections of the seats, and there’s a 10-colour LED mood lighting system on the options list.
You can also order your Q2 with that colourful 31.2cm ‘Virtual Cockpit’ digital instrument cluster, which technically costs R6 400, but to have it you must also order an MMI navigation system for a further R24 000.
Talking gadgets, other nifty options come in the form of head-up display as well as Apple CarPlay and Android Auto smartphone integration. There’s a further glut of available gizmos to help the driver out, and these include adaptive cruise control with ‘stop & go’ traffic assist, pre-sense frontal hazard detection and the latest semi-automatic park assist system with cross traffic assist for reversing.
When it comes to the sensible
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