AFTER switching to Audi’s new naming policy and receiving an equipment boost in 2019, Audi’s best-ever mid-sizer – the B9-generation A4 (and its more seductive A5 cousin) – has been gifted a midlife makeover for 2020.

Visually, that means plenty for the slightly older A4 sedan and A4 Avant wagon than it does for the more rakish A5 Sportback, Coupe and Cabriolet. 

Audi has altered almost every panel on both A4 body styles – adding subtle wheelarch blisters, among a multitude of rejuvenating flourishes, to bring the B9 A4 into line with its fresher A1, A6 and new-generation A3 stablemates.

Audi would argue the funkier A5 already had enough creases in its panelwork, though it too visually benefits from super-cool, cutting-edge new lighting signatures that serve to underline the classiness of these bread-and-butter models.

Bread and butter? Well, Australia’s bestselling variant is now the A5 Sportback (accounting for 40 per cent of total A4/A5 sales), ahead of the A4 sedan (32 per cent) and S-badged performance models (20 per cent).

But as our two-day drive of this extensive A4/A5 range proves, not every 2020 variant builds on the suaveness of its predecessor.