Audi - allroad old vs allroad new

After six years I have traded the old Audi allroad in for a new one, and with some mixed feelings. The old car had started to get very expensive to maintain. And faced with an engine cam belt, new front tyres and brake pads, on top of some other work just done, I thought I would look at the current model. Honestly, I didn't really need to trade, but it just felt like a good thing to do. The first allroad was a car I had always wanted. I know that some people can't compute, or don't respect, the executive mud-plugger hybrid that the allroad represented, but for me it offered the best of two worlds. Go-anywhere capability when needed, but gentleman's express at other times. At ease anywhere from Badminton to the City, biceps in well-cut Prince of Wales check. I liked the small but significant chunky signals of purpose over the standard A6 estate - the wheel arches, bumpers, and roof which were all tough polycarbonate, the skid plates front and rear, and the standard ride height which was a couple of inches higher. It had stance, that quality of looking fit for purpose, planted on the road, balanced on its feet and well proportioned, especially at its upper (normal) suspension setting. It was built to last as well, as Audis are. The dashboard was classic Audi, simple and clear, with large, instantly readable dials and all the information you needed immediately to hand. The car was well thought through and practical inside, with lots of cubbies, drawers and storage spaces. A tiptronic gearbox gave all the benefits of a manual in terms of control, along with all the ease of an automatic most of the time. I bought a 2.5 diesel, which gave great fuel economy with a decent amount of grunt. The V6 engine was very smooth when up to speed but could be a bit agricultural accelerating from low speeds and when cold. Handling was fine once you got used to the car's weight, which could make it feel unwieldy at first; it actually could hustle through corners surprisingly fast. The ride was a bit less supple than I had expected due in part to the air suspension, but quite acceptable. Visibility was excellent all round. The allroad was, of course, Audi's only off-road offering when it first arrived, and while it didn't claim Land Rover levels of capability it certainly could do the stuff when needed, to limits more dictated by its relatively conventional tyre tread than engineering. It was certainly a lot more than a cosmetic styling job, as one couple proved when taking a standard allroad along the Inca Trail; apart from brake pipes frayed by flying gravel the car took everything in its stride. And in daily use it felt like it too, immensely strong, immensely capable. I bought the original second-hand, so there were a few things I would have wanted which it didn't have. No wheel-mounted controls for the audio, no sunroof, no electric seat adjustment, but these weren't exactly what you'd call serious problems. Overall this was just a great car and I enjoyed it - a lot. Most of all it lived up to its promise of a car that could move effortlessly and successfully from town to autobahn to green lanes. Its brand statement blended business with adventure, urban with country, the smooth and sophisticated with the raw and real. I suspect that people who bought an allroad would have thought about a Range Rover and rejected it as too big, too brash, too in your face, too overwhelming. The allroad was altogether a subtler statement, more for people who knew who they were than for those who still needed to shout about it. So, the new allroad (this is a late 2009 model that I've bought, second-hand again). With the Q7 and the Q5 chasing the off-road SUV market, Audi appears to have shifted the allroad's emphasis more towards the smooth and sophisticated business end of the spectrum. It's a strikingly styled car, very successful in my view. So I guess the new allroad is in spirit less 60:40 town to country and more like 80:20. To deal with the positives first, the 3.0 litre diesel engine is superb. It's more powerful than the old car's, but much cleaner, quieter, smoother and more economical. The car goes like a dream, to the extent that most of the time you simply wouldn't know you're in a diesel at all. The sat-nav is a revelation after the old car's, and better positioned too, but not perfect. There is a great sound system, with the option of feeding music stored on SD cards into it, which I like. It's got a better ride, and lighter steering. It has gizmos like an auto-dipping rear-view mirror and lots of programmable system settings. It hooks up to my mobile phone. It looks great in Lava Grey. I love being in it. It's effortless to drive. Less good things: it's far less practical inside in terms of storage and general living. The boot space - which wasn't great in the old car - certainly hasn't got any better. The dashboard is far less successful. The tiptronic gear hunts between gears on winding minor country roads. But - and here's the main thing - it has traded, and lost, some of that essential allroad character from the previous generation to this. It's certainly clever, but I suspect far less strong and capable off-road. As a result, the incremental gain between it and a standard quattro A6 estate has shrunk. My guess is that it now occupies an even smaller niche than before in Audi's line-up and corporate thinking. Which is a shame, because (being honest) cars satisfy both our real functional needs and our Walter Mitty cravings. And the old allroad did both superbly. Somehow Audi managed to hit the Walter Mitty spot, but in the new incarnation that has all but gone. Did Audi really even know it was/is there?