If you like your car to stand out from the crowd, to make a statement about you and your tastes, the latest-generation Audi Q5 may not be for you. And if you like your driving to be stirring, involved and exciting, this two-litre TFSI quattro with a Tiptronic automatic may not be for you either.If, however, you want a car that simply does what you ask it to do without show, shout or drama, whatever the weather, then this car may be exactly what you're looking for.Audi's Q cars are its SUVs and the 5 is the middle of the range between the cavernous 7 and the compact 3. This version of the Q5 that I've been driving has a heavily revised version of the two-litre turbocharged petrol engine. It became available to buy in the UK a few months ago, in autumn 2012.Everything about the car whispers refined efficiency and understated ability and driving it is possibly the easiest thing you'll ever do on four wheels.The clues are all there when you take a stroll around the car. My test vehicle is pure white and yet, apart from the big Audi signature grille it still looks anonymous. The headlights are almost perfect rectangles. A smoothly rounded nose runs up to a rounded clamshell bonnet and up the screen to a rounded roofline. The minimally sculpted flanks have the slightest of flares above the wheelarches. The back view is . . . well, it looks like the back of an Audi.Like I say, those are just clues. The driving experience is equally unchallenging.According to Audi, the two-litre, four-cylinder engine has a string of new developments including the control system for its valves, the thermal management system that helps the engine and gearbox warm up to operating temperature quicker, the fuel injection, the turbocharger and the way the exhaust manifold is integrated into the cylinder head. What we have now is a car so quiet and so smooth that it takes a special effort to hear it whirring away under the bonnet a few feet in front of you.It turns out a healthy 222bhp and 258lb/ft of torque, so it will effortlessly cope with anything you would normally ask it to do. The book says it'll sprint from 0-62mph in a healthy 7.1 seconds and I don't doubt it. The 1.7-tonne car nips away quickly from road junctions and cruises effortlessly in top gear on the motorways.Best use is made of that power and torque by a Tiptronic automatic gearbox with no fewer than eight forward gears to choose from. Gearshifts in fully automatic mode are utterly undetectable except for a twitch of the needle on the revcounter. When you put it into sequential manual mode, you have to keep an eye on that revcounter because there's no way you can instinctively know it's time to change up or down by listening to the engine note - it's too distant. It's better to leave the thing in fully automatic mode.When the weather turns wet or cold, the quattro four-wheel drive system does all the work in deciding where the power should go. It normally distributes 60% to the rear axle and 40% to the front, but that can be altered automatically to put drive to the end that's getting the best grip.If the driving conditions turn from cold and wet to snowy or flooded, the car has about eight inches of ground clearance which means it's still far from being a proper off-roader or dune-hopper, but it has a significant advantage over most other road cars.Needless to say, Audi has tuned the suspension to be very supportive when you're pressing out through the twists and turns and the adjustable-weight steering is set nicely to be firm at high speeds but light at low.Looking around the car I find on this one that the tailgate rises and shuts on its own motor. The boot inside is reasonably big and under the floor there's a space-saver tyre to get you home if the worst should happen. Folding the 60/40 split rear seat down to extend the load bay is also easy. You pull the toggle and a spring shoves the seat forward for you.The back seats have knee room helped by cut-outs in the backs of the front seats, and in the main rear seats there's still about three inches of headroom above my pretty average 5'11" frame.The latest version of the Q5 is externally a minor evolution from the outgoing model. Under the bonnet the revisions are more extensive. The car will now give an official average fuel consumption of 37.2mpg and it's one of the smoothest, effortless cars I can remember driving.The Q5 is an expensive option when weighed against similar-sized cars from the Far East, and you can easily add tens of thousands of pounds if you wade into the costly box of toys and equipment. But it's good. All that needs to be done now to make Audi cars irresistible is for the company to extend its new-car warranty to at least match the best of the rest. It would make it easier to part with the cash. Engine 1984cc, 4 cylinders Power 222bhp Transmission 8-speed automatic Fuel/CO2 35.8mpg / 184g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 7.1 seconds Top speed 138mph Price £33,585 Details correct at publication date
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