155 in the first diesel sports car

Walter de’Silvia says it’s the most beautiful car he has ever designed. He should know all about that since he heads up styling department for Audi.

And the gleaming blue A5 coupe sure looks like a sports car even if the eight LEDs lining the bottom of each headlight pod are a little over the top.

It has two doors, a six-speed manual transmission and 19-inch wheels. The base engine is a stout gasoline V6 with 265 horsepower. There’s a V8-powered model, called the S5, with 100 more horsepower. Both have Quattro all-wheel-drive. But this . . . is different. It’s an A5 sports car with a diesel engine and the first true diesel sports car to hit North American streets. Of course, it’s not available there yet, but it is available here in Europe and a fast drive on an unlimited-speed portion of the German Autobahn is just the ticket to either confirm or deny this two-door’s claim as a true sports machine. Out here, looking the part just isn’t going to cut it, especially when nearly every other car is a BMW or a Mercedes-Benz driving in the fast lane.

The A5’s 220-horsepower 3.0-liter diesel engine is a new-strain of diesel with a combination of civil driving characteristics, outstanding torque (more than 400 pound-feet from a small V6, which is nearly double that of the gas V6) and a projected average fuel economy approaching 40 mpg. In terms of performance, Audi’s numbers are 5.9 seconds for the sprint to 60 mph and a top speed of 155 mph, 0.2 seconds quicker and 25 mph faster than the gas V6. Wow.

Largely absent from North American roads, diesels are immensely popular in Europe where fuel costs significantly more. At home, diesels are relegated to strong-man work, deemed too uncouth for much of anything else. However, a new-generation diesel is upon us that uses cleaner fuel while filtering out the black grime that used to be synonymous with diesel ownership. But a sports car? It’s the perfect vehicle to prove that the new diesels are for real. Audi also has sound logic for its development of diesel engines: the Environmental Protection Agency predicts that 500 million barrels of crude oil could be saved every year in the United States if just one third of all vehicles were diesel powered. While about half of European vehicles are equipped with diesels, in North America that number plunges into single-digit territory.