2 November 2025

Audi has created a rare thing in its updated seven-seat SUV

2 November 2025 | By James Coleman

The shape is about a decade old already, but does that mean it’s no longer any good? Photo: James Coleman.

It’s like the fountain of youth. The elixir. The holy grail. A seven-seater SUV that is also a joy to drive.

Alfas and Porsche have done it with five-seater SUVs—thumbed their noses and blown sloppy raspberries at physics by making intrinsically big and heavy vehicles that handle with grace and agility.

But can you pull off the same trick in a car with seven seats? Surely that’s a bridge too far. Not in the Audi Q7.

Alongside the swoopier, coupe-styled Q8, this is the brand’s biggest SUV. Technically, there’s an all-new one due next year, but for now we have an updated version of the same model that’s been on the market for about 10 years.

To be honest, it’s pretty hard to pick apart with its ever-so-slightly reshaped lights and bumpers. But don’t let the update go to waste – the Q7 is still genuinely very good.

Measuring five metres long and weighing 2.2 tonnes, fundamental universal laws told me to expect a bit of a clumsy and cumbersome mammal from the driver’s seat, but it was an astonishingly sharp and light surprise. And not just because I came to it after spending a week wedging the HMAS GMC Yukon Denali through Canberra’s streets.

The steering is quick, and there’s a nice snarl from the 2-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine. It’s almost more like a warm hatch than a seven-seater SUV.

The air suspension is perfect too – stiff enough to keep any wallowing at bay but comfortable enough not to jiggle.

With eight gears in the automatic transmission (a good two too many), it can take a moment to find the right one when you put your foot down, rifling through them like an aged receptionist you’ve interrupted from a Jane Austen book. But select the ‘Dynamic’ drive mode, then put the gearbox in ‘Sport’ mode by pulling the lever down again, and it’s snappier.

Photos: James Coleman.

At that point, however, it’s safe to say your fuel consumption will also suffer badly – at one point, I was recording an average of 14 litres per 100 km in the city.

The styling is also smart and cool in a security-detail kind of way (especially in Mythos Black Metallic), but won’t blow any frocks up. It’s the same inside, at least in my base $108,000 45 TFSI model – all a bit black and grey and drab, and scattered with a few blank buttons where features would be if you’d worked a bit harder.

Hard to tell it’s a base model … apart from a few blank switches. Photo: James Coleman.

That said, all the features you’d want are here, including a 360-degree camera view, self-parking and heated seats up front. And nothing since the Panzer has come close to Audi for sheer German solidness.

And so you know – and don’t, like me, almost have to call Audi and tell them the two touchscreens don’t work – the Q7 uses “haptic buttons”. This means you press it to the point you think you’ve cracked the screen and it lets out a little (satisfying) click.

It’s actually very clever, and stops you accidentally bumping who-knows-what with your finger while on the fly. Even if it seems slightly unnecessary when you consider normal, traditional buttons can deliver the same feedback with far fewer silicon chips.

The all-electric Geely EX5, exclusive to Lennock.

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There’s also heaps of space, and – unlike many seven-seaters – even in the boot after you’ve deployed the two rear-most seats, which you can do electronically, at the press of a button on the side of the boot wall.

Likewise, the boot floor is high, but another button lowers and raises the entire rear of the car to make it easier to pile stuff in.

Arguably, this is the actually important stuff you want to know about a seven-seater SUV – what it’s like for six of its occupants rather than just the one at the front.

But the beauty of the Q7 is that it’s pleasant for everyone.