The New Petrol-Only Audi SQ5 Actually Wants You To Oversteer

This week, Audi revealed its all-new SQ5 at the Detroit Auto Show, and two particular details stood out.

Firstly, there’s the engine: it’s a 3.0-litre petrol V6 - the same engine as the S4/S5, which is good for 349bhp. The last SQ5 was predominantly powered by a diesel engine, apart from in North America, where it was sold with a V6 petrol.

Now in this post-dieselgate automotive landscape, the whole world gets the V6 petrol, with the 3.0-litre oil burner conspicuously absent.

Despite switching to unleaded power only though, the SQ5 is still torquey, with a decent 368.8lb ft output. It’s quick too, getting you from 0-62mph in 5.4 seconds and topping out at an electronically limited 155mph.

Interesting item number two is the handling, as the SQ5 has actually been set up to oversteer on the limit - not something you usually expect with a fast Audi. We have heard reports before about the SQ5 being engineered with oversteer in mind, but the car’s Detroit reveal gives us confirmation.

The quattro all-wheel drive system does the obvious thing of lobbing more power to the rear during most driving situations, but also under hard driving it’ll send more torque to the outside rear wheel. In other words, it’ll deliberately make the back want to step out a little. Neat, right? It should hopefully be a feature we see on future fast cars from Ingolstadt.

In other news, the SQ5 gets Audi’s 8.3-inch screen-based MMI system as standard, with Virtual Cockpit as an option. You also get a bunch of autonomous-ish safety features, including ‘traffic jam assist’, ‘active lane assist’ and ‘Audi pre sense city’. The latter feature warns you of any absent minded pedestrians and - if necessary - brakes to stop you smacking into them.

Order books for the SQ5 will open later this month, with first deliveries happening in summer.