The 2022 Audi S5 Sportback Is Unexpectedly Delightful
A strong utility outfielder in the sport sedan game.
The first really quick car I ever drove in my career as a car writer was a car very much like the Audi S5 Sportback. As a matter of fact, it was an Audi S4 — the more traditional-looking twin of this Sportback — equipped with a dual-clutch gearbox and a 329-horsepower supercharged V6 — and to my young self, it felt insanely rapid and absolutely brilliant.
This was back in 2010, however, when Audi was just launching the predecessor generation to the B9-generation A4/A5/S4/S5 you came here to read about. 12 years may feel like an eternity in the automotive world — at least, the 12 particular years between then and now certainly does — but Audi's compact sport sedan duo hasn't changed all that much in that time. There's still a forced-induction V6 under the hood, although it's gone from a supercharged to turbocharged; it still, of course, boasts all-wheel-drive; and while the interior has evolved, today's car still feels closely related to that one from more than a decade ago inside, from the design and layout of the radio to the pebbled leather of the three-point steering wheel.
So here, a dozen years and one and a half generations of car later, I find myself once again piloting a compact Audi sport sedan around New York City. And, as it turns out, even scrubbed clean of nostalgia, it's a damn nice car.
