Our thought of luxurious modifications usually. What qualifies as indulgent and trendy in a single second can shift within the subsequent. These cycles appear to be rushing up yearly.
That doesn’t all the time work out in our favor.
High-quality eating close to my Washington, D.C.-area house, as an illustration, now means tasting menus stuffed with wave after wave of tiny dishes made with elements from many cultures. I take pleasure in them and have discovered quite a bit from them. However fantastic eating used to imply an ideal steak. And I’m nonetheless excited after I discover that.
What does this must do with the 2025 Audi SQ7, you ask? Loads. To elucidate, I’d have to sit down you within the driver’s seat, ask you to activate the seat massager and modify the 23 audio system of the Bang & Olufsen sound system, assist you discover Dynamic Mode, and watch as you mashed the accelerator and heard that wonderful twin-turbo V8 snarl to life.
The 2025 SQ7 is, after all, a 2025 mannequin yr automobile. However in case you spend time test-driving its rivals, you’ll notice it doesn’t appear to be one. It’s nearer to what the automotive business discovered modern when this era of Audi’s Q7 luxurious sedan debuted … again within the 2016 mannequin yr. Audi will seemingly exchange it subsequent yr (although they haven’t formally introduced that but).
The SQ7 is the high-performance, ultra-luxury model of a 7-seat SUV design almost a decade outdated. America’s tastes change quicker than that. However strap in, fireplace it up, and I wager you’d find it irresistible.
My tester carried the tech-oriented Status package deal, the athletic-oriented S Sport package deal, the posh package deal’s added leather-based, that 23-speaker system, 22-inch black wheels, and the Black Optic package deal — in different phrases, all the things.
It retails for $116,640, together with a $1,195 vacation spot price. Steep, sure. However that is filet mignon seared by a grasp.
An Engine for the Historical past Books, with MPG to Match
Most rivals have gone to some type of electrification — a minimum of a light hybrid system, if not a full plug-in hybrid possibility. The SQ7 is old-school.
This drivetrain unites a 500-horsepower, 4.0-liter biturbo engine with an 8-speed automated transmission, good for 568 lb-ft. of torque. Audi claims a 0-to-60 mph time of 4 seconds, however some testing organizations have managed slightly beneath that.
It sends energy by Audi’s by-now-legendary quattro all-wheel-drive system.
Let’s get one factor clear — Audi’s 4.0-liter V8 and the quattro system every deserve to sit down on plinths within the automotive corridor of fame (a factor that exists solely in our collective imaginations). Uniting them is purpose sufficient for this automobile to exist.
The engine’s soundtrack is sonorous and deep. Its acceleration is brutal in the easiest way. It will possibly’t make a 3-row household SUV really feel small, however there’s one thing spectacular about sitting at a stoplight in each the biggest and the quickest automobile in sight.
All-wheel steering makes it surprisingly agile, and the energetic roll stabilization discovered within the S Sport package deal retains it flat in corners. The Audi Drive Choose system makes it an automotive multitool with many drive modes and customizable changes to suspension and engine response to create your personal.
But when a giant, unelectrified V8 is a throwback in 2025, so is its gas financial system. The EPA charges the SQ7 for 15 mpg within the metropolis and 21 mpg on the freeway. In apply, I acquired a lot lower than that. I’ve pushed extra fuel-efficient full-size pickups.
All of it feels slightly traditional in 2025. Generally the classics are what you need. However you may’t assist however discover that even the AMG model of the Mercedes-Benz GLE provides a hybrid system. Ditto the BMW X5 M Competitors.
Screens and Switches Like a 747
That sensation of barely dated luxurious continues to the cabin.
The setting is luxurious, with actual leather-based (a vivid crimson in my tester, including drama to the cabin), and a headliner in Audi’s subtle Dinamica microsuede.
The driving force faces a digital instrument display screen. Within the middle sits a touchscreen dealing with leisure and navigation. Beneath that could be a smaller, 6.8-inch diagonal display screen controlling the local weather and seating features.
Below all of that sits a row of metallic-finished buttons and knobs duplicating lots of these features.
I recognize actual knobs and buttons. But it surely’s all slightly a lot. It reminds you that, in 2015, when this automobile debuted, all of us thought vehicles full of screens have been the peak of luxurious. In 2025, with our display screen addictions, it appears like overload.
Newer Audi designs have simplified all of this, consolidating screens.
I don’t need to overemphasize consumer interface design. The reality is, you get used to how your automobile works fairly rapidly. Few of us drive round in a automobile from one model, pondering, “This presentation seems neater in different manufacturers.”
But it surely does. The SQ7’s difficult controls would give me pause, however I’d recover from them for that engine word.
Seating within the second row is comfy for adults. The third row, nevertheless, is slightly small for anybody previous center faculty.
I assumed I’d seen each automotive know-how. However I used to be shocked when the SQ7 began counting down the seconds till a stoplight turned inexperienced in slightly driver’s instrument-screen icon. This trick solely works at specifically outfitted stoplights, however I did see it greater than as soon as.
The Bang & Olufsen system is great, with depth and concert-hall area within the sound.
Getting old, However the Better of Us Are
There’s a restricted viewers for one thing just like the 2025 Audi SQ7. However Audi is aware of that, and doesn’t construct too lots of them.
The SQ7 presents a improbable engine, maybe the grippiest all-wheel-drive system ever devised, and all-wheel steering. It wraps it in a subtly enticing package deal and fills the cabin with creamy leather-based and a number of other screens.
In fact, that’s what all of us regarded as luxurious about six or eight years in the past.
Luxurious felt fairly rattling good six years in the past. You may need to safe it for your self into the 2020s.
Nevertheless, if the spirit of the SQ7 appeals to you however you’d like slightly extra up-to-date cabin, I strongly suspect Audi will give us that with this automobile’s successor pretty quickly.
When it arrives, it should seemingly go well with our notion of luxurious in 2026 — tasting menus and fusion flavors. In case you choose one thing meatier, get it when you can.
