RUBIES IN THE ROUGH

AUDI Q7 45TDI QUATTRO TIPTRONIC VS. MERCEDES-BENZ GLE400d COUPÉ 4MATIC 9G-TRONIC

While power outputs range from 183 kW to 243 kW, the price discrepancy is bang on R500 000 and even their body shapes differ; these two new German lifestyle cocoons offer seating high enough off the ground to make you scoff at the world. For some, that’s all that matters. But not us. Neither has any real pretence of extreme off-road capability, so a 500 km roundtrip from the endless plains of the Tankwa Karoo to the high plateau of Middelpos Pass outside Citrusdal would decide the winner.

LESS IS MORE

Audi Q7 45TDI quattro Tiptronic

We were a handful of kilometres into our Epic Drive with all four of the Audi’s wheels safely on bitumen when something began to niggle at the back of my mind that I couldn’t shake. I last drove a Q7 back in 2017; an uneventful occasion of which I remember little, and first impressions are Audi doesn’t seem to have moved its premium-SUV game along much since then.

The initial deduction is Ingolstadt has deliberately gone against the grain of the latest troop of obnoxious, in-your-face SUVs – , just like the Mercedes-Benz