PRODIGAL SON

Stately and sensible – is the new Audi A4 a fully realised version of itself?

- PARTH CHARAN

Driving an all-new Audi A4 seems like such a distant memory. It’s like the “A4” moniker has been resurrected from the crypt. What once marked the gateway to the four-ringed club, with its reassuringly sensible looks, smooth and unhurried ride, and the sensationalism of a pair of suspenders, now finds itself in a very different world. Usurped by the A3, the A4 now has to tread a fine line by being more desirable than the A3 and more accessible than the A6.

Fortunately, the way it has gone about doing so is by looking distinct and remaining individualistic. Audi has shaken off the whole “Russian doll” syndrome that many-a-German carmaker seem to be afflicted with. The A4 may have plenty of design updates, but it’s still unmistakably an A4. There’s a level of sobriety and restraint exercised in the design, allowing only the faintest hint of exuberance to break through the surface. And that’s pretty much been the A4’s personality all along. It’s a gentleman to its core and makes no bones about it. It’s that car that beckons at the end of a long and strenuous day of commerce, offering a tranquil journey, sheathing the passenger from everything: from road noise on an empty stretch of tarmac to the cacophony of gridlocked streets.