Audi Q5 is buff luxe in a guilt-lite package

The most astonishing thing about my time in the 2009 Audi Q5 was that I actually took it off road, with dirt and everything. Granted, I was in the Brentwood neighborhood of West Los Angeles, where the creeks burble with Bollinger and raccoons wear rhinestone collars. Nonetheless, for most buyers in the compact luxury sport-utility segment, my little excursion on a home construction site might as well have been crossing the Gobi.

You know these vehicles. Indeed, you cannot swing a rhinestone-wearing raccoon on the Westside without hitting one: Acura RDX, BMW X3, Infiniti EX35, Land Rover LR2, Lexus RX350, Mercedes-Benz GLK350, Volvo XC60. Let's be clear about the psychology of these preppy, princessy soft-roaders.

Generally speaking, the buyers of these vehicles are not price constrained. They are guilt constrained. They want a luxury SUV -- powerful, sumptuous, swimming in privilege -- but they themselves are appalled at the overage of tonnage in vehicles such as the Mercedes-Benz M-class, BMW X5 or Land Rover LR3, the latter of which looks as if it should be throwing out its hawsers next to the Queen Mary.

Having gazed into the abyss of their own automotive vanity, buyers blink and opt for SUVs that are smaller and more appropriately sized, quasi-crossovers whose fuel economy is at least defensible if not commendable. I'm not saying that plopping down 40 grand on one of these leather-lined trucklets makes you Aldo Leopold, but at least these buyers have some kind of conscience. In the weird morality of American consumerism, they are practically plaster saints.

Until now, Audi had nothing to offer buyers who backed away from the Q7 plus-sized SUV, which could never be surgeon general. The new Q5 ($37,200 with Premium package) brings the luxe and the supper-club swank of the Q7 to the more petite platform.

The Q5 shares a chassis and greasy bits with the A4 sedan/wagon: direct-injection 3.2-liter, 270-horsepower V-6; a six-speed automatic with manual-shift mode (Tiptronic); and Audi's proprietary all-wheel drive system, branded as Quattro. All of this is honeyed with the eerie lack of stiction and micro-machined smoothness that is now typical of Audi powertrains.

You can appreciate these cars on many levels, but for me, a shade-tree mechanic, Audi's dazzling, aerospace-like fusion of electronics and metallurgy makes me want to throw my toolbox into a lake.