Audi rental
Kuala Lumpur

Audi's identity was built on the rally stages of the early eighties, when the original Quattro proved that permanent all-wheel drive could turn a nose-heavy five-cylinder coupé into a Group B weapon. The five-cylinder engine with its distinctive 1-2-4-5-3 firing order and warbling off-beat note became a signature, and the all-wheel-drive philosophy became the company's entire technical brand. Everything Audi has done since is a refinement of the idea that grip is a feature you can engineer in, not a limit you have to drive around.

The A5 in our fleet is the mainstream expression of that philosophy and it is a genuinely well-resolved car. The coupé body is one of the better-looking shapes in the segment, the interior architecture is Audi's real modern strength — clean, logically laid out, materially honest in a way that has been widely copied and rarely matched — and the turbocharged four gives it enough pace to be entertaining without asking anything difficult of the driver.

The way to understand an Audi against its Munich and Stuttgart rivals is by what it prioritises. A BMW asks you to participate. A Mercedes asks you to relax. An Audi asks you to arrive quickly and without drama, which in Malaysian conditions — sudden torrential rain, standing water on the Federal, an unlit expressway at midnight — is a more useful character than the reviews of the time usually allowed. The traction advantage in the wet is not theoretical; it is the reason the car feels planted when the surface goes greasy after the first ten minutes of a downpour.

For a Kuala Lumpur rental, the A5 slots in as the composed, quiet, well-made choice with a good cabin and no bad manners. It is not the car to hire if you want an occasion. It is a very good car to hire if you want four wheels of grip, a comfortable place to sit, and a shape that still looks right in a photograph seven years after it was designed.