2010 Audi Q7

The Q7 has been around for a couple of years now and is very popular in the Middle East.

It’s a huge, comfortable four-wheel drive SUVs very much geared towards on-road use – no low-range gearboxes or rock crawl modes to be found here. This is no Range Rover – it’s a large Audi designed for cruising around town and on the freeways.

We drove the new 4.2-litre V8 S-Line edition and it’s very good. One expects a certain level of quality from Audi and the Q7 doesn’t disappoint. There’s leather seats, soft touch materials everywhere and everything feels as solid as a rock. All the touch points all carry a sense of quality.

The engine is fired by a tasty aluminium start button and although the other buttons are plastic, they still feel really good to the touch. Even the wood trim splashed along the doors and dashboard - something this reviewer normally hates – looks rather classy.

All the headlining and pillars are upholstered in suede-like Alcantara and are all nicely stitched. The steering wheel feels meaty to the touch with some nice perforated leather upholstery.

The layout of the instruments and systems is intuitive, making it very easy to get comfortable with the operation of everything in the Q7 straight away. The MMI (Multimedia Interface) is similarly easy to use, but as with other Audis, the zoom in and zoom in functions, controlled by the main dial on the centre console, is the wrong way around. It should be turn right to zoom in, left to zoom out, but Audi has it the other way around for no discernible reason.

There’s plenty of room for five passengers as standard and there are two more optional, stowable seats in a third row, although these are best left for kids and take up a great deal of boot space.

Assuming you stick with five occupants, they’ll all have loads of head and leg room and each of the middle row seats move independently of each other, which is a nice touch. The rear also gets two air conditioning zones to itself – making four in the whole car – which should solve any arguments about who’s hot and who’s chilly.

For 2010 the Q7 has received a few cosmetic tweaks to its grille and bumpers, as well as new LED running lamps in the headlights, while the rear has a similar treatment. Inside, there’s a new instrument cluster, some door-mounted lighting and lashings of chrome. It’s all very stylish, yet understated.