Audi has revealed the Q9, the largest car it has ever built and its new flagship, sized beyond both the BMW X7 and the Mercedes-Benz GLS. The brand’s own language is unambiguous: this is a car built to be, in its words, unapologetically high-status.
Two decades of watching Mercedes and BMW own the full-size segment have shaped a considered response. The Q9 seats up to seven, opens via electrically powered doors, carries the biggest panoramic roof Audi has fitted to any model, and closes with curved OLED rear lights, a world first for the brand. The standard car runs a 429-horsepower V6 from just over $89,000.
The one worth the detour is the SQ9. Its twin-turbo V8, the same 4.0-litre unit that powered the pre-facelift RS6 Avant, has been retuned for SUV duty to 591 horsepower and 590 lb-ft, reaching 60mph in 3.8 seconds for a well-optioned price near $130,000. Audi calls it the quickest-accelerating three-row SUV in its class. Rear-biased quattro, an electronically locking rear differential, standard rear-wheel steering and staggered 22 or 23-inch wheels sit beneath firmer air suspension.
What stands out is what Audi left out. Both the X7 M60i and the AMG GLS 63 run mild-hybrid systems; the SQ9 carries none. In a segment increasingly softened by electrification, a full-throated combustion flagship reads less like an oversight and more like a position.
That position matters because the full-size class has, until now, belonged entirely to Audi’s two closest rivals. Entering the market at this level, with so much status signalling built into the specification sheet, suggests Audi is finally challenging territory it has spent years watching from the sidelines.
It also arrives at a moment when European luxury marques are recalibrating how far electrification should reach into their largest, most status-driven models, particularly for American and Middle Eastern buyers who have shown little appetite for compromise on power.
Two decades of GLS and X7 loyalty do not dissolve on a specification sheet. What the Q9 is really asking of buyers is whether they are ready to let a new badge define what full-size luxury looks like at all. Deliveries begin in the fourth quarter, with order books open through dealers now. Visit Audi here.
