Smoking hot – AUDI SQ5 TDI

While the Audi Q5 is a decent luxury SUV, you aren’t likely to find one in a quarry near you, racing up and down near-vertical muddy surfaces. So it doesn’t come as a surprise that the company decided to soup it up a little bit – and revealed one at the Le Mans 24 Hour Race in France.

What does come as a surprise, though, is how much they souped it up. And that they went the diesel route, instead of just chucking in some turbo-charged petrol V6.

The SQ5 TDI, as it’s called, uses a 3-litre V6-turbodiesel that develops a whole 230 kW and 650 Nm of torque, the latter being available from as low as 1450 r/min. And although it is capable of 5.1 second 0 to 100 km/h acceleration, fuel consumption is still a meagre 7.2 litres per 100 km.

The wheels are 20-inch mags and the ride height has been lowered by 30mm. Which makes it a pointless vehicle on dirt. But man, all those bits in between.