With the venerable A4 gone from Audi’s lineup for the 2026 model year, the Ingolstadt-based automaker has selected the brand-new A5 to take its place in the compact executive sedan segment. Competing with BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C Class, the A5’s ground-up redesign is both easy on the eyes and stacked with standard luxury equipment. The A5’s more athletic sibling, the S5? It’s all that and more, boasting a healthy bump in power and performance-oriented tuning.
The BMW M340i xDrive has set the bar quite high in the segment since its refresh a couple of years back. But can the aggressive Audi steal some prospective buyers with its own driving experience? Even with a portly curb weight and quintessentially Audi (meaning, weird) powertrain? Here’s how this all-wheel drive German executive express measures up at $62,700 to start.
Exterior and Interior
The overall look of the 2025 Audi S5 is quite sharp; gazing at it from the side and rear three-quarter, its hatchback-leaning rear half is quite athletic and a step in the right direction for Audi’s latest design language. The same goes for its overall profile, though, there’s a lot going on in its front fascia—the side venting is seemingly there for function, but the massive grille is… a lot. It’s not bad, but it’s a bit counter to the tradition of understated, “if you know, you know” German performance sedans. That being said, it’s not like BMW’s done the human eye any favors with its cartoonish kidney grille designs over the past few years.
The S5 is a dimensionally large compact executive sedan that’s pushing the “compact” aspect, but it wears it well. And this does bode well for interior roominess, which is quite accommodating up front for a variety of heights and body types—plus tremendously comfortable standard sport bucket seats with excellent bolstering. The same can’t quite be said to the rear seat area due to the sportback sloping roof, though headroom is only really maxed out for folks over six-feet tall (like yours truly), otherwise shoulder and leg room are surprisingly good.
The driver seat dives well below the belt line offering a sporty position, and overall visibility is great. The cherry on-top: it’s rare for steering wheels to telescope out and low enough for comfortable performance-oriented driving, but it does so in the S5. Which made it all-the-more fun to rip through one of my favorite mountain-top roads.
Driving the 2025 Audi S5
This may be beating a dead horse among Audi enthusiasts, but for the uninitiated: all Audis with conventional Quattro all-wheel drive systems have their entire engine bolted way far forward, ahead of the front axle. This is what I mean by it being a weird power- and drivetrain—think of it as the opposite of a Porsche 911 Carrera 4.
Normally, having all that heft at the bow doesn’t bode well for overall handling; keeping it down low and between the axles behooves good turn-in response, chassis communication, overall grip, the works. However: going for a spirited drive in this big sedan seemingly broke this rule. I didn’t expect it to be such a moment of clarity.
A top perk of automotive journalism that absolutely never gets old is figuring out any car’s handling quirks, and this mighty Audi four-door is among the most-fun I’ve done so with in 2025. Initially, I was turning in for corners like I would in any sports car or sedan; as fast as the chassis could take without losing grip or washing out into understeer. But the S5 didn’t like this. It truly felt like there was a pendulum up front delayed a split-second off from my steering inputs, and boy was it awkward. But I quickly figured out that the S preferred a slower, more methodical turn-in, giving the weight a hair more time to shift from side-to-side. Then, the instant it felt stuck down to the tarmac, following up as soon as possible with more gas than usual sent that weight out back, and its Quattro all-wheel drive held onto it. Admirably so, in fact.
Despite being under-damped in its sporty Dynamic mode, the Audi S5 was immense fun to throw around. Its 245-wide 20-inch summer tires initially seemed like not enough rubber for its portly 4,288-pound curb weight, but they held up just fine. Helping harness grip in the S5 is fully independent five-link suspension at all four corners—the only member of the segment to have it—plus a sport differential and adaptive dampers. Damping longitudinal G forces are massive single-piston calipers with 14.2-inch rotors up front and 13.8-inch units out back. This executive express’ handling was quite impressive and exuded confidence through a very wide variety of corners. As long as I followed the aforementioned basics of turn-in and drivetrain trust. Then, during one or two moments of lightly overstepping the limit of grip, the S5’s good chassis communication enabled easy correction via a hint of counter-steer. It was tremendously fun to play with.
Finally, the engine itself was a real firecracker. This hot-v single-turbo 3.0-liter V6 doesn’t look like much, and its 362 horsepower and 406 pound-feet of torque (up 13 and 17, respectively, over the 2024 S4/S5) doesn’t sound like enough pep for a heavy all-wheel drive sports sedan. But it turned out to be plenty—in fact, it enabled the S5 to pull with all the might at highway speed, and, despite some off-idle lag, lunge off the line with loads of aggression. 0-60 mph taking a reported 4.3 seconds is nothing to sneeze at, and there’s a good chance that its 60-120 would beat similarly spec’d fare by BMW and Mercedes.
It’s a very entertaining chunk of aluminum, but, sadly, it’s always a bit too quiet. The exhaust has a nice burble at idle, and you get hints of boost pressure helping send the mighty 3.0 to redline, but excessive muffling definitely rains on the enthusiast driving parade.
However, this does bode well for the every day commute and errand run. It’s a relaxing relaxing place to hang out while cruising around town with its refined ride quality, which resolves speed bumps and beat-up urban roadways rather well. The same goes for the highway—in fact, potential customers would be hard-pressed to find better in this department for the price offered.
Sports Sedan
Between its solid ride quality, athletic power, and surprisingly fun handling dynamics, the 2025 Audi S5 is a solid modern European sports sedan. It follows in the footsteps set by many fast Audis before it (D2-generation S8, B5-generation S4 and C5-generation RS6, to name a few) with its weird engine placement, but it proves that this still somehow works. Its face may not be as stealthy as its forefathers’, but the sportback-slash-conventional sedan styling is still quite handsome, in fact it’s refreshing to see in our era of CUV/SUV homogeny. BMW and Mercedes (but mostly BMW) have cornered the fast luxury sedan segment, but the S5 is definitely worth considering if ride quality, all-wheel drive prowess, and just driving something a tad different are high priorities.