Detroit: Audi's Sportback Concept: Sportback design spreads its wings

Under normal circumstances, it's not a good thing when a high performance automobile invokes comparisons with a yacht. Visions of a stately, even ponderous, craft are hardly in keeping with a vehicle aspiring to be among the fastest, sleekest automobiles on the highway.

Yet, anyone who peaks at the interior of Audi's Sportback Concept can't help but agree with observers who liken its quilted white leather seats, high gloss surfaces and breathtaking sweeps of fine-milled wood accents to those of a yacht. Couple that elegant interior with state-of-the-art drivetrain technology and a body that is zen-like in its uncluttered lines and forms, and you have one of the unquestioned stars of the 2009 North American International Auto Show.

Audi's Sportback idea is nothing particularly new. The A3 Sportback has been around since 2004, its four doors plus rear hatch design almost immediately out-selling the conventional two door model. Now with the Sportback Concept, Audi has made clear the sportback will not be limited to the compact segment of its line-up, but will expand through its entire range of products.

The Sportback Concept also utilizes Audi's Modular Longitudinal Build concept which enables cars of very different proportions to be constructed on the same basic platform, in this case the same as A4, A5 and Q5. Thus the Sportback Concept's dimensions of 16.2ft length, 6.3ft wide and a mere 4.5ft high are very different from those of its cousins.

Still, it’s what's on the platform that most arrests, the versatility of a five door design wrapped in a cloak of sporting elegance that is pure Audi, with its visual emphasis on horizontal lines and width exemplified by the broad, nearly flat LED headlamps.

There is more to this than mere appearance as, for example, aerodynamically designed air intakes under the headlights functions as deflectors which guide cooling air into the intake duct while simultaneously accentuating an impression of width. Similarly, the single frame grill was consciously designed without vertical struts to help accentuate the Sportback Concept's "horoizontality" and further emphasize the orientation of the vehicle body to the road.

The drivetrain is every bit a match for the futuristic look of the Sportback Concept, beginning with the latest generation TDI clean diesel engine. The V6 TDI features a piezo common rail fuel injection system with highly efficient exhaust gas recirculation and optimized turbocharging that produces significantly reduced raw emissions. What's more, according to Audi, its unique combustion chamber sensors enable unmatched regulation of the combustion processes in the engine in the names of efficiency, performance and reduced emissions.

Like the 3-liter TDI in the U.S. version of the Audi A7, the Sportback Concept's V6 produces 225 horsepower and 405 lb-ft of torque. Power is transmitted to all four wheels by a seven speed tiptronic transmission, one equipped with a dedicated oil heating system to insure it reaches optimal operating temperatures quickly thus reducing the level of internal friction immediately after startup. Other measures of the Sportback Concept's efficiency include an electromechanical power steering unit and an energy recovery system that consumes energy when the steering wheel is turned but not while the car is being driven in a straight line.

This combination of power, fuel and aerodynamic efficiency (CoD of .30) enables the Sportback Concept to accelerate from 0 to 60 in under seven seconds and hit a top speed of 152 mph while also attaining more than 39 miles per gallon, according to the European ECE standard. Wrapped in its sophisticated, low slung body, those are numbers worthy of a yacht all right - one like you'll find bobbing at the most exclusive moorings in Monaco next May during the Grand Prix weekend.