Audi of America today chose a 40-year-old Pikes Peak record as the opening argument for its newest lineup. The brand’s Performance Runs in the Family campaign, launching today across television, digital, and social platforms, frames the all-new 2027 Q7 and SQ7 as the inheritors of a motorsport pedigree that most buyers will never need to demonstrate but that Audi clearly believes still sells the cars.
The centerpiece is Michèle Mouton, the French rally driver who won the 1985 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb behind the wheel of an Audi Sport quattro S1. The hero TV spot follows Mouton returning to the mountain with her family, mixing archival footage with present-day scenes of the SQ7. A companion long-form film reunites her with the original S1 she drove that day. It is better marketing material than most automakers produce, partly because Mouton’s achievement is genuine and partly because Pikes Peak photographs well under any conditions.
The campaign arrives with the third-generation Q7 already in dealerships. Audi claims best-in-class 0-60 mph acceleration, horsepower, and torque for both the standard Q7 quattro and the SQ7 within their respective competitive sets. The Q7 benchmark group includes the BMW X5 xDrive40i, Mercedes-Benz GLE 450 4MATIC, Volvo XC90 B6, Lexus TX 350 AWD, and Genesis GV80 3.5T. The SQ7 is measured against the BMW X5 M60i, Mercedes-Benz AMG GLE 53, Range Rover Sport Dynamic SE, and Porsche Cayenne S. Audi has not shared specific horsepower, torque, or 0-60 figures for either new model, leaving those superlatives without anchoring numbers for now.
The outgoing Q7 relied on a 3.0-liter V6 making 335 hp in its top configuration, a figure Audi will presumably need to beat to make the best-in-class claim hold. The 2024 model’s sales trajectory tells a parallel story: the Q7 peaked at 38,346 units in 2017 and had settled to 20,894 by 2024. The BMW X5, which Audi names as a primary benchmark, sold 18,680 units in Q1 2026 alone against the Q7’s 3,554 in the same period. The performance heritage campaign is partly about legacy, but the sales math makes clear the new generation has real competitive ground to recover.
quattro itself debuted in 1980 and proved itself immediately in rally racing before becoming Audi’s most durable technology identity. The connection to Mouton’s Pikes Peak win is clean: that race, that car, that result is about as direct a proof-of-concept as a brand can point to. Whether the Performance Runs in the Family framing translates into showroom momentum is a separate question from whether it’s good storytelling. On the storytelling measure, it clears the bar.
The 2027 Q7 and SQ7 are on sale now at Audi dealers nationwide. Audi hasn’t announced pricing for either model in the US.
Source: Audi. Images courtesy of Audi.
