The Audi A4 is essentially all-new for 2006, though officially it was launched as a 2005.5 model. It's a tidy, cohesive design and the closer you look, the more its quality construction becomes evident.The new A4 presents a more muscular and more visually planted frontal view than the previous model, this somehow despite the new A4's track being fractionally narrower than the previous-generation model's track (the distance between right and left wheels).
Opinions vary on the big grille. On one point, there's agreement: It's different. Whether this is a plus is subjective, but expect the look to appear in clearly recognizable and evolving form on all Audis as each model comes up for a redesign. We've already seen this on the new A6 and A8. The enlarged, trapezoidal grille opening increases air flow coveted by the turbocharger's intercooler in the four cylinder and the radiator cooling the larger, more powerful V6.
The headlamp give the fascia a more assertive look, with lenses that angle upward as they wrap around the fenders. Laterally split intakes below the body-colored bumper and outboard of the grille do dual duty, housing fog lamps and channeling air toward the front disc brakes. A modest hood bulge, a styling cue designers call a power bulge by way of hinting at the latent energy lurking beneath, carries the grille's vertical outlines back to the roof's A-pillars.