With SUV sales booming locally, it's Audi's Q5 that continues to be a sales winner for the company. The new Q5 is just around the corner and according to Audi, the local team has had input into the vehicle's design and engineering requirements.
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Speaking with CarAdvice at the recent launch of the Audi A4 Allroad, Audi Australia managing director Andrew Doyle said that Australia's input has helped contribute to the new Q5.

"As we are getting closer and closer in overall sales to the top 10 [Audi markets globally] we have much more say in design and certainly with Q5 we are in the top 10 [sales globally]. Our product guys are often invited into these product circles and without sounding arrogant, the car is already quite good, we didn't need a lot of enhancement," Doyle said.

"The new car, from what we've seen and heard will be even better again, which is great and we'll see that before the end of the year. In terms of our success with the current Q5 and SQ5 on top of that, we're pretty excited by what that means in terms of another sales impulse."

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Audi's local product team offers input and specification requirements for the Australian market, such as full-size spare wheels, certain climate requirements and performance specifications.

This input is then considered at the beginning of the development program to ensure the final product matches Australian requirements. This input is normally only accepted from global regions that sit within the top 10 sales for the specific model.

In the past, input from Audi Australia had included things like dust sealing, which was improved and implemented on Q3 and Q7 following a transcontinental Q7 trip across Australia in 2007.

When quizzed about a performance variant of the Q5, Doyle was excited about the opportunities.

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"We have an SQ7 coming in terms of the Q7 range, but with the outstanding success of the SQ5 globally and particularly in Australia, we're certainly pushing pretty hard for that to come again before too long."

Doyle also intimated that performance diesels will remain part of the Audi range with the success of these engines attributed to both performance and economy.

"... The success of that [diesel performance] has proved that it's a concept our customers will accept and embrace. So performance diesels are going to be part of Audi's future."

What would you like to see as part of the new Audi Q5, which we expect to see revealed at the 2016 Paris motor show and we have spied testing.