The interior is really where you start to fall in love beyond the sheet metal. I have known for a long time that Audi has done great fit and finish on their interiors but this application is a cut above. Two minute details stand out. The headliner and the rear armrest.
The headliner is finished in such a way where you actually notice it. The rear armrest is nicer than what you would see in the front of most cars.
Even the lighting inside the car is elegant. That has more to do with the glass roof than any artificial lighting. Virtually the entire roof is one piece of glass giving off the impression that it is a totally open car. Like I have not been able to understand women, I can’t understand why Audi blessed this car with this glass roof that cannot open all the way. It just tilts up. An inch at that. It is about as useful as a window in a prison. You can see freedom but you just can’t touch it. I would highly suggest borrowing technology from Fiat and the now dearly departed Pontiac and break up this one piece of glass into four smaller pieces so they can slide back and rest on each other. Then you would really have an open elegant coupe.
So infatuated was I with this vehicle that I perused an Audi lot after dark to look at colors. It was there I realized that color selection can transform the A5 from a merely attractive car to a knock out. The car loaned to me by Audi for far too short of a period was an unusual Quartz Grey Metallic with a supremely elegant Cinnamon leather interior. But what is important to note is that the entire interior is not this color. Just the seats and door panels ala Italy’s best giving the A5 a bespoke feel. The point here is that you need a contrast between the interior and exterior to make it stand out with all the light coming in from the roof.
Elegance was not just the color of the seats. My particular ride had the optional ‘Milano’ leather that not only covered the front of the seats but the BACK as well! As it turns out, Italy is a big theme with this German car and probably the big reason for its beauty. It was designed by an Italian. Actually the guy responsible for turning around designs coming out of Alfa Romeo.
Then there are little design touches of the technology. Even the fonts on the navigation screen are simply elegant. Think Mac and you get the idea. The door locks are not a pop up and pop down proposition. It is a small LED inside the door lock button. Crude long handles or foot pedals for the parking brake are a thing of the past. Here you get an aluminum-finished toggle switch. A rarity in high-end audio systems, the Satellite radio sounds very similar to terrestrial radio. Which is to say it Audi and Bang and Olufsen found a way for satellite audio to not sound like a game of telephone involving a two tin cans and a piece of string. Personal opinion, I would say the Blind Spot system is more of an annoyance than a safety feature. It is a light that gets increasingly more annoying as someone gets closer to you. If it happens abruptly, it will scare the crap out of you.