Audi A5 vs Maserati Ghibli

What's the difference?

VS
Audi A5
Audi A5

2026 price

Maserati Ghibli
Maserati Ghibli

2021 price

Summary

2026 Audi A5
2021 Maserati Ghibli
Safety Rating

Engine Type
Turbo 4, 2.0L

S/C & T/C V8, 3.8L
Fuel Type
Premium Unleaded/Electric

Premium Unleaded Petrol
Fuel Efficiency
6.9L/100km (combined)

12.3L/100km (combined)
Seating
5

5
Dislikes
  • Loses some interior simplicity 
  • Edition One not a permanent fixture
  • Having to wait for more variants

  • Seats lovely but a bit firm
  • Confused sense of identity
  • Expensive
2026 Audi A5 Summary

The Audi A5 has done something naughty. It’s replaced the Audi A4.

Or at least that’s the case for now after the Ingolstadt brand made a bit of a mess of its naming strategy.

Essentially, the Audi A5 is now available as a sedan or a wagon, and the next A4 coming soon will be electric. The previous A5 was a swoopier two-door coupe or four-door gran coupe style model. So the A5 is now effectively Audi’s main BMW 3 Series or Mercedes C-Class and CLA rival.

Plus, the Audi S5 is also here to cater to performance car fans.

Can a new platform, a sleek, fresh look and a techy interior do the job?

We’ve been pedalling around the Victorian countryside in the hopes of finding out.

Stick with me, and I reckon we’ll get to the bottom of it. The question about the car, that is, not the bottom of Victoria.

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2021 Maserati Ghibli Summary

Maseratis make a certain amount of sense to a certain kind of person. As the folks who run the brand in Australia will tell you, its buyers are the kind of people who’ve driven German premium vehicles, but find themselves wanting something more. 

They are older, wiser and, most importantly, richer. 

While it’s easy to see the high-end lure of Maserati’s Italian sex appeal styling and luxuriously appointed interiors, they’ve always struck me as cruisers rather than bruisers. 

Again, they’re for the older, more generously padded buyer, which makes the Trofeo range something of an oddity. Maserati says its Trofeo badge - seen here on its mid-sized sedan, the Ghibli, which sits below the vast Quattroporte limousine (and side on to the other car in the range, the SUV Levante) - is all about the "Art of Fast". 

And it certainly is fast, with a whopping V8 driving the rear wheels. It’s also completely bonkers, a luxury car with the heart of a track-chomping monster. 

Which is why Maserati chose to launch it at the Sydney Motorsport Park complex, where we could see just how quick and crazy it is. 

The big question is, why? And perhaps who, because it’s hard to imagine who wants, or needs, a car with such severe schizophrenia. 

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Deep dive comparison

2026 Audi A5 2021 Maserati Ghibli

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