Audi SQ7 TDI (2016-2020) review – design
Audi’s biggest S model digs deep into its technical arsenal to create a talented, if somewhat joyless SUV, but then aren’t they all?
If you’re wanting to slip down the private school car park without anyone noticing, the new SQ7 is not for you. The design elements front and rear are not ostensibly different to those of the standard S-Line Q7, save for a (mostly real) set of quad exhausts, but the huge wheels, complex arrangement of creases, trim elements and that enormous grille mean the SQ7 remains one of the more assertive-looking SUVs on sale.
New for the SQ7 are also laser-assisted Matrix LED headlights which do their best impression of mimicking a UFO abduction in winter darkness. As was the case with our old long-term R8, they are hugely effective, and endlessly entertaining to watch dance around traffic ahead of you with impressive precision.
Designers do mention that the increased emphasis on the bodywork around the wheelarches help it reduce some of the previous model’s large estate aesthetic, but we’ll leave that up to you to judge whether or not it's a success. Either way, the SQ7 is big, brash, bold and hardly a bastion of subtlety, which is about right for its intended audience
