When it comes to filming and photographing the wealth of new cars that appear on Autocar each and every day, there are invariably two protagonists in our story: the hero, and the unsung hero.
The hero car is the star of the shoot. It’s treated with the utmost care and respect, and polished to within an inch of its life to ensure it shines bright in front of the camera. The unsung hero is the crew car that makes it happen. Never seen, typically a large family-sized SUV, it stores the kit, carries the crew, and is the hub from which all our content is created.
So, on any shoot, the crew car gets a tough workout, and that makes it a genuinely useful litmus test for a model that will be put through its paces in the real-world by families with fast-paced busy lives and jam-packed holidays, or active sporty types who think nothing of taking a few mates and all of their gear to the coast, the river, the mountains or the bike trail.
That’s why on our recent road-trip across Germany in the Audi Q6 e-tron we borrowed the freshly updated Audi Q7 SUV TFSI e quattro to see just how competent Audi’s large family-friendly plug-in hybrid actually is. Here’s what we found.
Learn more about Audi’s plug-in hybrid line-up
Space: the first frontier
The first test any crew car has to pass is luggage space. And our Audi Q7 TFSI e quattro aces it with flying colours.
We’ve got access to up to 1,863 litres of load volume if we fold the second-row seats down. But that would necessitate a second car for two crew members. So, the fact that we can easily fit the bulk of our camera equipment and luggage into the 563 litres of standard volume – with a couple of longer items like tripods poking through the 40:20:40 split-rear ski-hatch without affecting the rear passengers – is perfect.
The Audi Q7’s hands-free key and power operated tailgate prove incredibly useful as we keep needing to stroll back and forth between the camera and the crew car to pick up kit. Equally, the Audi Q7’s interior is dotted with plenty of large convenient cubbies for all the phones, cables, radios and the wealth of energy-restoring snacks that are a feature of long days spent shooting on-the-move.