What's all this about?

In a brilliant bit of perfectly German rationalisation based upon raw horsepower figures and nothing else, tuning house Abt has deduced that the most powerful second-generation Audi Q5 is not, in fact, the one with the SQ5 honorific, but is rather the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) variant called the 55 TFSI e. So it has decided to give that petrol-electric hybrid a tickle.

In what way?

With a 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol engine and a 105kW (143hp) electric motor, the 55 TFSI e is indeed the most powerful Q5 Mk2 with 367hp, some 20hp up on the SQ5 TDI (although we'll gloss over the fact the SQ5 has a thumping 700Nm of torque, whereas the PHEV makes do with 500Nm). Abt leaves the Q5's e-motor well alone, instead turning its attention to the combustion powerplant, which it jacks up from its standard 252hp and 370Nm to 310hp and 420Nm. That, in turn, raises the PHEV's overall numbers to 425hp and 550Nm, which ought to be enough to transform it from a '55 TFSI e' to a '60 TFSI e' under Audi's official, utterly baffling nomenclature... but we digress. Anyway, lob on a set of Abt GR 20-inch alloy wheels, in either gloss-black with a diamond-machined rim or in matte-black with a fully diamond-machined face, and a couple of interior gewgaws, and what you have here is an Abt-tuned Q5. Quite a special car in Abt's history, too, as Hans-Jürgen Abt, CEO of the company, explains: "For us, this Q5 represents a real first - this SUV is our first hybrid vehicle [which we have tuned]."

Is that it?

Well, there's another PHEV Q5 in the ranks, its smaller e-motor meriting 50 TFSI e badging and outputs of 299hp/450Nm. Abt will also work on the 2.0-litre engine in this and raise it to almost OEM-55-rivalling stats of 357hp and 500Nm, if owners so wish. To find out more about these tuned PHEV Q5s, visit Abt's website for more info.