The automaker deliberately kept the S5's design understated, combining cost-effective body panels with V6-powered performance
By Dan Neil
Audi is going through some things, financially. Faced with declining global sales, ruthless competition in China, U.S. tariffs, pressure from shareholders and from the German state, VW Group's premium-luxury brand is currently in cash-conservation mode. These imperatives are written all over the 2026 Audi S5 ($75,075, as tested), the sportier version of the company's latest A5, built on the bones of VW's universal combustion-vehicle platform, the PPC.
If I'm being honest, the new S5 is kind of a flex-free zone. Following the dotted lines of a typical front-wheel-drive liftback sedan and draped in some desultory sheet metal, the S5 is no lower, sleeker or more emotionally compelling than the mean-average. It's a hell of a thing when the S5 loses a beauty contest to the Toyota Crown.
That's not just me, right? Why has the S5 answered the door wearing this shapeless housecoat? In the following I will attempt to describe how finances express themselves in vehicle aesthetics.
To be fair, we're not catching Volkswagen Group's premium-luxury brand at a good time. That would have been just over 11 years ago, before the Dieselgate scandal. Please resist the urge to look back at, say, the 2016 Audi S4, which was positioned roughly equivalent to our test car. It hurts too much.
The Audi brand is a radically different animal today -- smaller, hungrier, and dependent on two huge export markets, China and the U.S., both increasingly problematic. At division headquarters in Ingolstadt, Germany, management has embraced the "reduce, reuse and recycle" mantra.
Reduce: In September, VW Group's board approved a plan to cut the group's portfolio of models and variants by 50%. For North America, Audi's 5 family will be limited to sedan-liftback body styles of the A5, S5, and RS 5, a high-performance plug-in hybrid. Sorry, Audi-philes: There will be no replacement for the old A4 sedan, no convertible model and no wagon variant, what the company calls the Avant.
Here it's helpful to know that tooling -- the metal-stamping equipment that automakers use to produce body panels by the tens of thousands -- is one of the biggest capital expenses in any production line.
Which brings us back to the S5's exterior. It's not a housecoat. It's an overcoat, size L, designed to fit a wide range of builds up to the 90th percentile. It can only be so form fitting. Note how the wheels of the S5 do not extend to the vertical edge of the wheel wells but are rather overhung slightly by the wheel arches, making them look smaller -- and weaker. This effect is universally understood by car designers to be a bad thing, which means they wouldn't have done it unless they had to.
The dead hand of accountancy can also be seen in the simplified surfaces. Note the softly creased light lines and shallow drafts along the door panels. These features are adequately handsome; they also represent relatively easy work for the panel-stamping shop. In a milieu where every fold and crease, every millimeter of negative draft or change of curvature, adds cost, the S5 saves.
The Audi branding wears thin in other places, too, such as the black polycarbonate grille, which from some angles looks less 3-D than 2-D -- a photorealistic decal, like those dogface balaclavas people put on to freak out their pets. Woof.
Reuse: The base model A5 is powered by an Audi-fied version of VW Group's 2.0-liter turbo-four (268 hp). The S5 takes a big step up, with a torque-rich turbocharged 3.0-liter V6 (362 hp), gated through a slick-shifting, seven-speed automatic and directed at the car's rear-biased all-wheel drive and torque-vectoring rear differential. This gathering of parts is roughly the same as in the VW Golf R. The S5's chassis is fortified, as well, with sport-tuned suspension. The tester's stiffer suspension received an adaptive damping augment as part of the Prestige package ($7,600).
Recycle: Our car's Prestige package bundled much of the upgraded creature comforts, including nappa-leather upholstered sport seats; a Bang & Olufsen 3-D sound system; and panoramic roof glass with variable light control. However, the interior fittings, cabin materials and user interface are readily recognizable from their mass-market cousins. Some are not even as good. The "Smart Door Panel" on the driver's side door consolidates many functions -- window, door, seating, mirror adjustment, exterior and interior illumination -- into a piano-black panel of haptic switches. Even the new VW Atlas has returned to physical switches.
The "Black optic" package adds the 20-inch wheels with bicolor finish. However, for model-year 2027, Audi of America completely overhauled its package names. So consult your local listings.
Not that the S5 isn't plenty sporty once it's engaged -- or, enraged. Pedaling through stop-and-roll traffic and shuffling through lower gears aren't its favorite things. The initial throttle response can feel lethargic, the gas pedal too elastic; then, when the network gets the news, the power comes in a rush, often a tick after you really need it. If it bugs you you can switch to Dynamic drive mode, which inhibits stop-start cycling. You can also use the stop-start defeat button but you have to press it every time you start the car.
The S5 comes into its own at highway speeds: Big, stable, refined, quiet, loads of reserve. Downshifts are blink-quick and seamless. There's more power upstairs than most American buyers will dare sample. The steering weight is unusually light and feels a bit numb in the center but the car responds predictably. Brakes seem to be where they ought to be.
So the S5 looks kind of, um, plus quotidien, vous savez? I know how to fix that and so does Audi. Behold the squatting, stance-intensive RS 5, the high-performance halo car of the 5 line, a proper dentist-killer packing 630 hp, courtesy of a plug-in hybrid augmentation of a turbocharged 2.9-liter V6.
If you wondered where the panel-banging budget went, it's here. Unlike the flaccid fenders of the S5, the RS 5's fenders and wheel arches are swole, extending a full 3 inches wider than those of the S5. Audi also makes an RS 5 Avant model but will not import it to the U.S. The RS 5 debuts the next-generation of Audi's Quattro permanent AWD, with a 400V electric motor baked into a torque-vectoring transaxle. Seek ye a picture on the internet: You will observe the RS 5's wheels most certainly extend to the wheel wells, if not a little bit more.
I suspect the S5's hotness was deliberately kept in check in order to make the halo-car RS 5 look all the more desirable. If so, mission accomplished.
2026 Audi S5
Base price $63,600
Price, as tested $75,075
Powertrain turbocharged 3.0-liter DOHC V6 with variable valve timing; seven-speed automatic transmission; rear-biased all-wheel drive.
Power/torque 362 hp at 5,500-6,300 rpm/406 lb-ft at 1,700-4,000 rpm
Length/wheelbase/width/height 190.3/114.0/82.6/56.5 inches
Curb weight 4,304 pounds (Car and Driver)
0-60 mph 4.3 seconds
EPA fuel economy 20/29/23 mpg, city/highway/combined
Cargo capacity 22.6/37.5 cubic feet (rear seat backs up/folded)
This article is being republished as part of our daily reproduction of WSJ.com articles that also appeared in the U.S. print edition of The Wall Street Journal (October 31, 2026).