A giant one, but a station wagon nevertheless. What a bold move! The 2016 Audi Q7 is also 716.5 pounds lighter than its predecessor and will be available as a diesel plug-in hybrid with quattro all-wheel drive as well.

Just look at that! Prof. Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, my favorite guy in the whole VW group is back at Audi as head of R&D, and look what happens! Carbon fiber makes it into the , and the Audi Q7 stops being a boring whale with the 3.0 TFSI topping the scales at 4,343 pounds, while the 3.0 TDI is 4,398 pounds before you jump onboard.

Being the first car that uses Audi's second-generation modular longitudinal platform, the Q7 is promised to be around 26 percent more efficient [(28% (TFSI) and 23% (TDI)] thanks to it sliding through the air with a cd value of just 0.32, plus how light it is considering that it's still a 16.6 feet long machine. It's also a bit shorter and narrower than the current car, but Audi says the new version is more spacious inside with its 9.8 foot long wheelbase and some added head, shoulder and knee room. Additionally, all three seats can each be moved longitudinally by up to 4.3 inches.

They saved 156 pounds on the body alone, using ultra-high-strength hot-shaped steel for the occupant cell, aluminum castings, extruded sections and panels all around and the rest of the parts being made entirely of aluminum, like the doors, the front fenders, the engine hood and the rear hatch.

You can also have it with all the bells and whistles from the Audi catalog, including an optional air suspension that has a towing capacity of 3.5 metric tons.

As a tow vehicle, the new trailer assistant will steer the trailer backwards in precisely the direction indicated by the driver using the rotary pushbutton of the MMI. The system also manages turning the steering wheel in the opposite direction, stabilizes the trailer-tow vehicle unit when driving backwards in a straight line and when the steering wheel is turned too far warns if the trailer could hit the rear of the vehicle.

IT'S A WAGON THAT CAN TOW BIG STUFF!

We will know more after its debut next month at the Detroit Auto Show, but in the meantime, what do you think?