Behold and Wonder: The 2012 Audi A7 3.0 TFSI quattro Auto Tiptronic Sedan

Is it cultural differentiation, or the car-makers' take on genetic manipulation? Maybe it’s going hybrid as applied to auto bodies -- or nothing more than novelty for its own sake. Regardless of what's behind it, taking its cue from the International Kongo Kruiser Motor Gypsy (or whatever that is) above, the DNA of traditional car models has undergone a freakish shuffling of late.

Good Goth: The 2012 Audi A7

Thus the hatch-backed and richly named 2012 Audi A7 3.0 TFSI quattro Auto Tiptronic Sedan joins with crossovers, roadster pickups, sport wagons, other four-door coupes and the rest of the shape-shifting vehicles to have emerged from Dr. Frankenstein’s Unconventional Car Windmill.

Awaiting the 2012s