2017 Audi Q5 3.0 TDI 286 first drive

The Audi Q5, a decent, nicely built but somewhat unspectacular SUV, is Audi’s best-selling car these days. Some 1.6 million Q5s have found homes since the models' 2008 launch, covering a period coinciding with Audi’s vast growth.

And now there is a new one. On a business level this thing really matters, even if the heartstrings aren’t exactly strumming along at the news in the way the noise of an old Quattro Group B rally car would elicit.

So popular has the Q5 been that Audi has built a new factory in Mexico just to manufacture it, some 150,000 a year at first. This plant will be the global production hub for the Q5 and is the first factory Audi has constructed outside of Europe to export to a global market.

The new workers in the factory will be building a car that ticks all the usual new car boxes of a fresh exterior look, plusher interior, lighter body and more efficient engines.

In the Q5’s case, that weight saving comes from the adoption of the new mixed-material MLB Evo platform, already seen in other guises on the Audi A4, Audi A5 and Audi Q7. It’s said to be up to 90kg lighter than the current model despite a slight increase in footprint, and that weight saving teams up with a more aerodynamic body for even greater efficiency.

The initial engine line-up includes a 2.0-litre diesel with 187bhp and a 2.0-litre petrol with 249bhp, with a range-topping 282bhp 3.0-litre V6 diesel due to follow very soon after launch. Quattro four-wheel drive and an automatic gearbox is standard on Q5s that will reach the UK.

We’ll have to wait until later in 2017 for the fruitier Audi SQ5 model, which is set to get a more potent version of the 3.0 V6 diesel. A plug-in hybrid model is also in development.

We haven’t seen any indication of pricing yet, but expect an entry price of around £38,000 when sales start in the UK early next year. There are three trim levels, SE, Sport and S Line, with equipment levels expected to closely match those of the A4.

The models we’re driving are the first off the new Mexican factory's production line. The Audi engineers we're with point out the odd quality niggle here and there, but to all intents and purposes these are the models we’ll be getting in the UK early next year.

We're driving the higher-powered V6 diesel and the four-cylinder petrol model, each with the optional air suspension and adaptive dampers fitted. The former gets an eight-speed torque convertor automatic transmission and permanent quattro all-wheel drive, and the latter a seven-speed S tronic dual clutch automatic gearbox and the quattro Ultra technology, which under certain conditions can prevent drive being sent to the rear wheels in order to save fuel.

It’s the V6 diesel that intrigues most, and my word it is smooth and refined - which is perhaps a good description of the car as a whole. The V6 produces a wide spread of torque with even the occasional sledgehammer effect to its delivery, such is the potency. You certainly won’t be wanting for any extra performance, and the eight-speed auto’ to which it is mated is complementary and not obtrusive.

But you wouldn’t ever call the car overtly sporty, which has as much to do with its chassis tuning as anything else. The Q5 is a very competent and predictable SUV, which is fine by its customers, but you can tell there’s probably quite an involving car in there waiting to get out given the chance.