Audi announces second-gen A5 Coupe

AUDI has confirmed that it will reveal its second-generation A5 Coupe, accompanied by a large-scale 3D light show, on June 2 in its home city of Ingolstadt, Germany.

Ahead of the global reveal of the A5 Coupe in a month, the Audi Forum building in Ingolstadt will be lit up by 55 separate video projectors in an art installation titled “Audi Late Light Show” for six consecutive nights beginning May 25.

Nothing about the car has been revealed, however it will be the first all-new A5 since the original launched in Australia in September 2007.

The range got an update in February 2012, which saw an increase in variants and styling tweaks.

Over time the range expanded to coupe, cabriolet and Sportback body styles, and was offered with a number of drivetrain options from the 1.8-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder in the base model, up to the 4.2-litre naturally aspirated V8 in the fiery RS5.

The new A5 will share the Volkswagen Group MLBevo platform that also underpins its A4 twin, which touched down in Australia in sedan guise in February.

On the new platform, the A4 is 25mm longer and 16mm wider than the old model, with a 12mm increase in wheelbase length.

Therefore, punters can expect that the A5 will likely have a slight increase in size, along with a raft of safety and tech upgrades that went into the A4, notably the likely inclusion of the well-received Virtual Cockpit that made its debut on the TT sportscar.

Audi dropped the 3.0-litre turbo-diesel and supercharged V6s from the outgoing A4 range and focused on smaller, turbocharged four-cylinder engines instead.

This could foreshadow the range update for the A5, which currently sells a turbo-diesel and supercharged petrol V6.

Since its launch, Audi has sold 12,310 A5s in all body styles in Australia.

To the end of March this year 115 have left the showroom floor. This is down 44.2 per cent when compared with the same period last year, when 206 two-doors had already been sold.

In 2015, 651 A5 Coupe/Convertibles found homes, and while the A5 was outsold by the BMW 4 Series (1921 units), it stayed ahead of the just-replaced Mercedes-Benz C-Class Coupe (1409) and Lexus RC (584).