THE HATCH IS BACK
I was heading down a narrow, craggy lane outside of Cape Town, South Africa, when we approached a group of children walking along its dry, grassy edge. I slowed. They were maybe 10 or 11 years old, dressed in a palette of primary colors: yellow shirts, red or blue pants. I guess they’d just gotten out of school. Turning around, they glanced at us in the black-grilled, laser-headlighted, hulking electric-blue 2019 Audi A7 and instinctively spilled into our path, loping into a sort of spontaneous dance. “Jeez, I don’t want to hit anybody,” I murmured to my co-pilot, Automobile’s Rory Jurnecka, braking to inch through them.
Just like that, smiling faces filled the side windows as they patted the fenders while laughing and waving. “This looks like an Audi commercial,” I joked to Rory. With a nervous foot covering the brake pedal, we were all waving; the exuberance was contagious. A while back, I relistened, and honestly, it seems like half this country is still swaying to Simon’s soundtrack.
