Tinkerbell the stray boerboel is living the dog's dream. He gets to frolic on the beach all day engaging in his two favourite pastimes: chasing sand crabs and making friends with the tourists that visit Mozambique's Xai Xai beach.
He's a free-swinging hippie mutt whose world knows no fences or leashes.
I thought he found a good soul mate in the Audi Q7 that brought us to his warm but chilled-out coastal paradise because unleashed is how the Q7 felt there.
In previous tests of this extra-large SUV we'd done a lot of urban commuting but never any outdoorsy stuff so when we recently took delivery of a silver Q7 3.0 TDI for a long-term test we decided it was time to unclip the leash and see how it likes wide-open spaces.
It likes them very much indeed, thank you.
At 2.3 tons and 5.1m long,though, the Q7 is more elephant than mutt. Where its sheer size can make it feel kinda bloated and claustrophobic in city confines (especially when parking) you really appreciate the space it offers on a holiday trip. Put it this way: kids with lots of room and comfort in the back seat tend to ask "are we there yet" far less often and that's a blessing on a 10-hour drive.
The Q7 gobbled distance effortlessly on the Johannesburg-Xai Xai journey though heavily laden with four people, a week's worth of luggage and food, and hauling a quad-bearing trailer.
There are more-virile V8 and V12 versions of the Q7 but unless you want to go motor-racing the three-litre, turbodiesel V6 provides all the power most people will ever need. It hums along smoothly, with its generous 550Nm ensuring easy cruising and good overtaking surge. It's not over-thirsty and, heavily laden as it was, averaged 11.3 litres/100km over our Mozambique adventure.
We fitted high-profile Pirelli Scorpion 18" off-road tyres - a decision with which I was very happy. Not because we did any hectic off-roading but because they delivered a comfier ride than the sporty low-profiles that auto companies usually fit on their test cars and dealt much better with rough roads.
We hit a few big potholes (there were as many in SA as in Mozambique, incidentally) that would almost certainly have holed low-profile rubber and dented its rim.
The slight handling disadvantage of the high-profiles is not something you'll notice in normal driving - you'd need to be going hell-for-leather through a mountain pass or around a racetrack to pick it up. If it were my R644 500 I'd definitely go for the off-road rubber, given the dreadful state of our roads these days.
ALL THE NECESSARY 'STUFF'
As mentioned, we didn't do any mud-up-to-the-door releases off-roading of the Camel Trophy variety - that's not the Q7's thing - but it did have the necessary stuff to get us through Xai Xai's soft sand and squishy mud: the "stuff" being permanent all-wheel drive, a generous ride height (our test car has the optional R23 200 adaptive air suspension that allows the driver to adjust ground clearance from 180-240mm) and great momentum capability from that gutsy TDI.
The car also comes with a handy 12V air compressor to reinflate the tyres after letting out some air for soft-sand driving (and to inflate the Marie biscuit spare in the boot).
The Q7 model range had a nip 'n tuck in August 2009 to freshen its styling (new grille, restyled bumpers, and LED lights) while the cabin was given a revised instrument cluster and switches and improvements to the interior lighting. It really is a classy cabin and, for perceived interior quality, I think Audi still has most of the opposition licked.
With its optional third row of seats (a R10 400 extra) the Q7 can lug seven people. With these seats stashed away (they fold flat into the floor) the boot becomes huge and there's an easy-to-clean plastic underfloor compartment that proved handy for storing our snorkelling gear and other wet, sandy stuff we didn't want on the carpeting.
NO CITY LIFE FOR TINKS
The leather seats are also easy to clean if you have to transport, say, a drooling boerboel.
We nearly had to... my kids fell in love with Tinkerbell and wanted to bring him home but I couldn't bring myself to take that free-spirited animal out of his unfenced paradise and into the claustrophobic concrete jungle.
The Q7 wasn't so lucky. - INL Motoring