There are always some cars, they will not put cost and practicality in the first place at the beginning of the design, people see that the first keywords that come to mind them must be "elegant", "high-end", "niche"... So when the A7 and CLS with the above features are placed in front of you, what will you choose?
Birth & Positioning
I've interviewed many Audi owners, and when I ask which Audi car is their DreamCar, almost everyone tells me that the A7 is the white moonlight they have in mind. Similar questions are thrown at Mercedes owners, with answers ranging from the A45 to the CLS Shooting Brake to the S-Class.
Admittedly, the A7 has a unique design and aesthetic that no other Audi car series has. Compared with the more historical Mercedes-Benz, which has developed a variety of masculine or feminine models, audi can have a car maverick like A7 in a shorter history, and it is still quite difficult to impress consumers with calm elegance.
The original A7 was unveiled at the 2010 Paris Motor Show, and it arrived to compete for a new segment of the luxury brand five-door coupe that Mercedes-Benz CLS had just opened.
In 2021, SAIC Audi launched an extended version of the A7 for domestic consumers - SAIC Audi A7L, which is also the first model of SAIC Audi.
SAIC Audi has made a number of targeted changes to the A7L, the biggest change is to directly add a tail compartment to the hatchback A7, changing the original imported version of the five-door coupe into a four-door sedan, which will inevitably cause controversy. In this issue, we still choose the imported version of the A7 as a comparison model.
In contrast, Mercedes-Benz, CLS can be regarded as the old predecessor of this market segment, Mercedes-Benz launched the first generation of Mercedes-Benz CLS based on the W211 platform in 2004. In the first four years of its launch, CLS was the leader in the field of five-door luxury coupes, and it was not until 2010 that it welcomed its first rival, the Audi A7. In 2012, the BMW 6 Series also entered the market segment, but due to the dissatisfaction of the water and soil, it was discontinued in 2018 after 6 years of release.
The CLS we see in front of us is a mid-term revamp of the third-generation CLS, which debuted at the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show. The new car is built based on the MRA modular platform, replaced by an inline four-cylinder 2.0T and an inline six-cylinder 3.0T, which is more explosive. After being introduced to the domestic market, China also deliberately added a 1.5T engine matching the power combination of the 48V light mix system to reduce the high displacement tax burden in China.
Appearance & Design Language
For fashion coupes, appearance is definitely the most important consideration. Usually such cars parked in the exhibition hall need to be fascinated by consumers at the first sight, if not, to the comprehensive competition of various capabilities, the final nine out of ten face the fate of being eliminated.
It is also for this consideration that any car company will be cautious about the modification of the shape of the coupe. However, I don't know whether the second generation of CLS is too stunning or the third generation of CLS returns to the family design language to force it to weaken its personality, and whether the changes of the third generation of CLS are successful, everyone has their own opinions.
Mercedes-Benz in the third generation of CLS adopted Mercedes-Benz's latest family design language, the advantage of this is to make it more like a "Mercedes-Benz", but close to the matryoshka front face undoubtedly weakened the original elegant temperament, sharp, sporty, lost the original mystery of CLS. The straight body line fits well on a four-door sedan, but it looks a bit bloated on the coupe.
The shape of the replaced A7 is undoubtedly subversive, if the first generation of A7 is still stuck in deliberate imitation, then the second generation of A7 is a work that Audi thoroughly demonstrates its design skills. Relying on the five-door hatchback design, the entire tailgate and rearguard of the A7 can be opened in one piece, which has completely freed itself from the shackles brought by CLS.
Audi's own flow-through headlights are a master of creating a sense of technology, and the through-type taillights have long become a trend design, but if the hour hand is set back to 2017, the A7 can be said to be the first model to integrate the through-type taillights and the rear of the car just right.
Power & Performance
In terms of power, the two cars have tacitly chosen not to over-squeeze the engine performance, after all, clS AMG and RS7 have opened up a more high-end battlefield. CLS's latest iteration is four high/low power models, also with 2.0-litre turbocharged engines.
The high-power version of the 2.0T includes one model with a 48V mixing system and two models without a light mixing system, all four models equipped with Mercedes-Benz's newly developed 9G-Tronic gearbox. Among them, even the low-power version of the model can burst out a peak torque of 320 Nm at 1650 rpm, which can fully meet the needs of daily travel.
The Audi A7 completed a facelift in January this year, and also chose a high/low power version of the full range of 2.0-liter turbocharged engines, but it did not carry a 48V light hybrid system like Mercedes-Benz. However, in terms of performance parameters, the Audi A7 is not ambiguous, and the low-power version of the A7 can burst out a peak torque of 320 Nm. And the entire series is equipped with a 7-speed dual-clutch transmission.
For this type of fashion coupe, the most suitable scene for them should be on a weekday afternoon, cruising at a low speed on an atmospheric road or riverside avenue. Corresponding to such a car scene, even the 2.0T low-power version of the model is already quite overpowered.
Edit a short review
The lack of a hunting version of CLS is somewhat regrettable, and the CLS, which is more and more like a "serious car", is not much interested. Now that SAIC Audi has just launched a 2.0T version of the A7L with a pre-sale of less than 500,000 yuan, such a high cost performance is bound to bring a wave of sales growth. At this time, although the imported version of the A7 has just been changed, but in order to get customers will definitely give preferential treatment, it is not beautiful to start an imported version of the new A7.
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