Review and photos by Simon Hill
 2013 Audi A4 Allroad. Click image to enlarge |
Car manufacturers occasionally do strange things, but generally they aren’t foolish… and Audi is perhaps the least foolish of them all. The buttoned-down folks in Ingolstadt know that if this review was about a station wagon – which Audi sold until recently in the form of the A4 Avant – it probably wouldn’t reach more than, what, maybe a dozen potential buyers over a three-month period? It’s hard to know for sure because in North America the station wagon market has been so thoroughly and completely swallowed up by the SUV/crossover craze that the continent’s most popular sales tracking site doesn’t even bother listing wagons as a category. So Avant sales are lumped in with A4 sedan sales, and you have to take your best guess as to how many actually sold. Suffice to say it wasn’t a lot.
Subaru, on the other hand, has done quite well selling its Legacy wagon over the years by embracing the crossover craze and outfitting the Legacy with a raised suspension, some rugged-looking body cladding and styling details, and an off-road ready, crossover-friendly name: Outback.
 2013 Audi A4 Allroad. Click image to enlarge |
So tearing a page from the same “North American Marketing 101” handbook, Audi has introduced the Allroad for 2013. It’s based on the A4 Avant, but no, it’s not an A4 Avant (and it’s not to be confused with the bigger A6-based Allroad sold here between 2000 and 2005). And while its official designation is indeed A4 Allroad, the badging on the back of my test car suggests the A4 designation is somewhat vestigial — it simply said “Allroad” (or “allroad” really, because Audi doesn’t like capital letters). And it’s a crossover. Really.
You can tell the Allroad is a crossover because like the Outback it has a raised suspension (37 mm taller than the dearly departed A4 Avant), roof rails, skid plates, an aggressive new grille, and rugged plastic fender flares. The flares are more than merely cosmetic as they allow the Allroad to ride on the Q5’s wider track, and they cover the Allroad’s beefy wheels.
The good news is that while the Allroad may indeed be a crossover (honestly), it’s definitely a lot more sporty to drive than most crossovers out there. The independent multi-link suspension has a fixed calibration specific to the Allroad and as expected this means it drives like a slightly raised A4 sedan, but the extra height doesn’t extract a heavy toll: the Allroad is well balanced with accurate, nicely weighted electrically assisted steering, and thanks to Audi’s Quattro all-wheel drive system it offers reassuringly sure-footed grip on all sorts of road surfaces. Wheels and tires are 225/55 R17 on base models and 245/45 R18 on Premium and Premium Plus cars, with 19-inch wheels available as an option.
    2013 Audi A4 Allroad. Click image to enlarge |
Under the hood the Allroad comes equipped with just one engine choice, a direct-injected 2.0L 16-valve turbocharged four cylinder that serves up a decent 211 hp and 258 lb-ft of torque. Keeping things simple, in all cases the engine is hooked up to an eight-speed automatic Tiptronic transmission (so no, there’s no manual transmission option, and while paddle shifters are an option on Premium and Premium Plus models, my test car relied on the gear lever for manual shifting duties).
The Quattro all-wheel-drive system is likewise standard – for the technically inclined, this is a permanent AWD system with a self-locking centre differential that normally sends power to the front and rear axles in a 40/60 front/rear split, but can divert up to 70 percent of power to the front wheels or 85 percent to the rear as conditions require.
