LEGEND AND LEGACY

The Audi Q7 once defined aspiration, presence, and power. But how about today?

- By Yash Sunil

To tell this story right, we need to rewind to 2013. That’s when my father surprised the family by deciding to buy a luxury car, an Audi Q5. I was 18, and like most teenagers obsessed with cars, I was over the moon at the thought of something premium coming home. But the first thing I blurted out was, ‘Why not the Q7?’ Don’t get me wrong — the Q5 was a solid machine, refined, capable and luxurious. But the Q7? That was different. It had a certain magic. A presence. An aura. Even before I'd sat behind the wheel of one, the Q7 had already taken up permanent residence in my imagination.

Back in the early 2010s, the Q7 wasn't just another SUV — it was the luxury SUV. It towered over traffic and its design was unmistakably German. In India, it became the de facto choice for celebrities, cricketers, and politicians; spotting a Q7 usually meant an A-lister was inside it. The Q7 didn’t just make SUVs desirable; it made them sexy. And whether people admit it or not, the Q7 helped ignite India's longstanding love affair with SUVs.

Today, when a pint-sized car like the Maruti Suzuki S-Presso can be sold as an SUV, you know the term has lost all meaning.

However, to understand the Q7’s genesis, we need to go back to 2003, when Audi unveiled the Pikes Peak Quattro concept. The name raised eyebrows back then; Audi’s ‘quattro’ badge was known for rally-bred performance, not plush three-row behemoths. But when the Q7 debuted globally in 2005, it made waves. Sure, Audi was late to the SUV party — BMW’s X5 and the Mercedes-Benz ML-Class had already set up camp — but the Q7 didn’t show up to blend in. It arrived in a velvet tuxedo with massive biceps.