M5 v RS7 v GT 63 S
600 horses, twin-turbo V8s, allwheel-drive, launch control, lap timers and four doors. These are family cars you can take to the race track
If Germans know how to make something, it is fast saloons. With the arrival of the new M5, we take three of the fastest – including the wildly expensive GT 63 S 4-door and the gorgeous RS7
IS IT WEIRD TO BEGIN A TEST OF 300KMPH monsters with a commentary on, erm, ride quality? Last time I checked it said Thrill of Driving on the masthead of this magazine, not Chilling. Then again when four doors are attached to your twin-turbo V8, the obvious allusion is to you being of a generous disposition, accommodating the entourage while hotfooting to the hills. Maybe you’d like to warm the rear quarters once in a while, it also being fair to assume your time is way too valuable to waste on elbowing through traffic snarls. And on this score the Audi, hands down, wins this test.
I draw your attention to the wheels — monster 21-inchers that, by every acceptable yardstick, spell murder for your spine. Yet, the RS7 Sportback rides almost as comfortably as a diesel 5 Series, prompting us to visit what used to be our favourite shoot location, now situated at the wrong end of what truly is a horrendous drive. Zero f**ks towards road maintenance means the road we once used to scythe through with our big bikes can now only be tackled with an ADV, strewn as it is with gravel, potholes and, not that you get up to any speeds, a generous peppering of speed breakers to rub your belly over. But it’s also the ultimate test of ride quality and, in the RS7, I reach our rendezvous tea-point at the foot of the hill climb, order breakfast, and then wait a further 15 minutes for the rest to arrive. Where the M5 and especially the GT 63 have to slow down to a crawl the RS7 can, if not gallop, at least canter. You apply the same caution as you would if you were driving the aforementioned diesel 5 Series and that’s about it — no extra care for low-pro tyres or jabbing the button to raise the suspension and crab for every speed breaker. The RS7 rides astonishingly well. Two days later, I even handed over the ’wheel to assistant editor Aatish to chauffeur me through Mumbai while I marked my presence at yet another virtual round table. And not once did I yell at poor Aatish to slow down. It’s magic. And it should mean the handling is all over the place. Except…
WE NOW COME TO THE PART YOU ACTUALLY want to read about. Few bother with torturing their spine or their cars to get to where we are and that means we have the place all to ourselves. It also means breakfast has to be prepped from scratch and we use the time to hose down and stare at the cars.
These three are stunning. Obviously the most flamboyant is the AMG, that monstrously toothy Panamerica grille and nostrils flared in anger hoovering up entire villages en route and exhausting them in a mighty bellow through those gigantic quad, err, quad-shaped pipes. Opinions might be divided on this count but I think AMG have done a damn fine job of replicating the (2-door) GT’s style and lines over the much larger MRA platform from the E 63 AMG. Festooned in (optional) carbon including that breakfast table bolted onto the rear hatch, the AMG looks exquisite; on the money. Nothing makes a visual or even aural statement as this AMG, the GT thundering its arrival in a hail of noise. Just be careful of the wheel
THE MOST IMPRESSIVE THING ABOUT THE NEW RS7 IS ITS CAPACITY TO ENTERTAIN
ALL OTHER FAST 4-DOOR SALOONS ARE MERE USURPERS TO THE M5’S CROWN
centre caps, they have a habit of divorcing themselves from the rims as is evident in the pictures.
The Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S 4-door Coupe is the most wordy AMG on sale right now, the most powerful, most over-endowed and most expensive at `2.57 crore. And speaking of money, this test isn’t a straight-forward group test as there’s a near-1 crore rupee price gap between the M5 and the GT 63, with the RS7 sitting plump in the middle at `1.94 crore — each occupying their own little sweet spots.
The M5 Competition, at `1.55 crore, sits at the other end of the scale. To the untrained eye this could be a diesel 5 Series but M5 owners don’t bother with such trivialities. This is the car that immediately springs to mind when you think of a fast four-door saloon, all other fast four-doors being usurpers to the M5’s crown. And I absolutely love the BMW’s looks, the stance, the way it hunkers down on those 20-inch rims, the muscles ripping and almost bursting out of the stretched metal. It is subtle enough to fly under the radar, yet even a sideways glance will get enthusiasts weak in the knees. And it shouts out its intent — not as vehemently as the AMG — but the pops, crackles and thunders are layered with unbridled enthusiasm.
I think that’s the biggest miss for the Audi. It sounds too, erm, tame. There is a deep-chested V8 rumble as it gargles high-octane juice at idle, especially when you hit the RS modes and the exhaust flap opens. But the decibels don’t assault your ears. People in the next city don’t hear you arriving. It isn’t a hooligan. And as for the styling, it isn’t an angry bird either. Audi grilles, just by their sheer size, have always made for angry cars, but in this company the RS7 doesn’t look like it has a beef to settle with the rest of the world. None of these are beautiful cars, but the Audi is the most elegant, the swoopy Sportback styling rendering proper beauty to
the hindquarters. And of course, Audi does a crazy light show that could have been needlessly garish but is so tastefully executed that even grizzled veterans on our test team repeatedly locked and unlocked it when the sun went down. It is an appropriately expensive trick for what is a properly expensive car.
BEING THE NEWEST IN THIS LOT I BEGIN THE hill climb with the RS7. Under the hood is the familiar 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8, now with the addition of cylinder deactivation and a 48-volt mid-hybrid system to reduce its thirst. Power, as is always the case with every new generation, has gone up — in this case by 39bhp to 591bhp. Knowing how keen-eyed you are, I’m sure you will point out that the outgoing RS7 made more power, and you are right. The last RS7 we had in India was the Performance that kicked out 597bhp, so in absolute terms we are down by five horses. Torque — more useful and relevant but invariably left to play second fiddle to power — has gone up, to a ginormous 800Nm (100Nm more than the regular RS7, and 50Nm more than the old Performance) and that, along with refinements to the powertrain, shave two tenths off the 0-100kmph time, the RS7 now hurling itself towards 100kmph in just 3.6 seconds. 200kmph? 12 seconds flat. And top speed? Well depends on how much money
you present at your Audi dealer. The regular 250kmph limiter can be opened to 280kmph or if you’re really bonkers, 305kmph. And it will do all of this without drama. Hit the RS button twice on the steering wheel for the #FullSend RS2 mode, call up the stopwatch on the digital cockpit, and just launch. The trademark quattro four-wheel-drive system claws away at the tarmac, the car squats on the rear suspension, the nose gets ever so slightly weightless and the horizon gets reeled in at a truly alarming rate. You just hold the steering wheel and ignore the pitiful cries from your passengers. In the past this would have put the Audi at the top of the acceleration charts, except all its rivals have realised what Audi knew all along and have given their fast cars four-wheel-drive.
The BMW M5 we have here is in the Competition spec, that’s 13 more horses than the ‘regular’ M5 for a total of 616bhp and 750Nm of torque. The M5 Competition uses its 24 extra horses over the RS7 to full effect, hustling to 100kmph in 3.3 seconds and thundering past 200kmph in 10.8 seconds. And, similar to Audi, your friendly BMW dealer will happily relieve you of some more cash to open up the speed limit with the M Driver’s Pack to 304kmph.
With the AMG, there’s just this one spec — the S — and it beats everything hollow. It makes the most
THE RS7 HURLS ITSELF TOWARDS 100KMPH IN 3.6S AND CAN BE OPTIONED TO MAX OUT AT 305KMPH
IT’S JUST EASIER TO SLIDE THE M5; MORE ENJOYABLE, MORE ENTERTAINING
power, 630bhp. The most torque, 900Nm. It gets to 100kmph the fastest, 3.2 seconds. And you don’t have to option any packs to open up the speed limiter; like the 2-door Coupe the GT 63 has no limiter and will make noise all the way to 314kmph. And if that wasn’t mad enough, it also gets Drift Mode.
Mercedes doesn’t make it easy for you to get into a shitload of trouble. Accessing Drift Mode means driving dynamics in Race, transmission in Manual, ESP fully off and then you pull both paddles, the car asks if you’re fully insured, you tap the right paddle to confirm you’ve lost your marbles and… let’s be honest, you will only do this if there’s a camera in front of you to bag some smoky sideways shots for the ’gram. There’s just too much power — more to the point too much torque — and the wheelbase is rather long, all of which makes this thing oversteer without any provocation at all. In first it will do nothing but spin up the rears if you apply more than 50 per cent of throttle. Getting it to slide in second gear is child’s play. But it will also slide in third and fourth, possibly even fifth but I’m not mad to try it because even catching a fourth gear slide is proper high speed, heart-in-mouth stuff.
Pictures in the bag, the best way to drive it is using everything AMG has placed at your disposal, particularly 4Matic+ and AMG Dynamics that vary engine response, damper settings and four-wheel steering according to the demands you make on the car. The MRA platform has been significantly strengthened for the GT 63 with aluminium strut towers and subframes, carbon boot floor and rear bulkhead, and high-strength steel for the cross members of which plenty have been used to improve torsional rigidity. Running on 315-section 21-inch tyres, grip is himalayan and on regular roads you are hardly ever going to experience understeer of any sort. Power out of the apex and the all-wheel-drive delivers terrific grip. And I can quantify what I mean by terrific. After having spent two days hammering the GT R (the twodoor Coupe, it’s so confusing having two completely different cars share the same name!) round the BIC I’m as astonished as you will be when you read this, but the big, four-door, 2045-kilo beast delivers better drive out of tighter corners. There’s also impressive agility, of course not like the two-door track monster, but for such a large car — five metres long! — the eagerness with which it changes direction is quite remarkable. The all-wheel steering also makes it feel far smaller than it really is, allowing you to belt round your closest hill climb and not worry about running out of road. This isn’t a sexier E 63 AMG. This is deserving of its status as the range-topping AMG.
For entertainment though, there’s nothing to beat the M5. BMW doesn’t call it Drift Mode, preferring the more prosaic 2WD Mode, but they’re not interested in making you jump through hoops to engage it either. Punch the big red M2 button on the steering wheel, twice, and you’re good to go. Good to shred the back tyres in a volcano of tyre smoke. It’s just easier to slide the M5, more enjoyable, more entertaining, the active
M rear differential switching from fully open to fully closed in a blink, torque-vectoring the outside rear tyre and slide out of corners in a well-controlled drift. Of course here you are on your own, no electronics to fall back on in case you run out of talent, but BMW also allows you to play within the safety net, 4WD Sport mode on the M Dynamic Mode allowing quite significant angles of oversteer before stopping you from falling down the mountain. No smoky slides, but you do get impressively crossed up before ESP kicks in.
That isn’t something you can do with the RS7. The slides you see on the previous pages, that’s the absolute maximum the Audi will permit before stability control chimes in. And you can never fully switch off ESP or engage Drift mode. It’s not a hooligan. But that’s not to say it isn’t playful. Where Audis used to be blunt hammers delivering crushing speed but without finesse, the most impressive thing about this new RS7 is its capacity to entertain. Most of it is down to the rather clever four-wheel steering which, unlike in the past, doesn’t have fixed angles for fixed speeds. Now it is 3D-mapped to constantly varying parameters like speed, steering angle, throttle position and more and depending on what’s going on in a particular corner the rear wheels could be pointing in the same or opposite direction to the fronts. And with the RS7 available with only 21 or 22-inch rims, the system has an even smaller window of variance to deal with, so it is more accurate than if it had to work with rims from 19 all the way to 22-inches. The result is agility through corners, stability on expressways and a stunningly tight turning circle while in the city. It has a tighter turning circle than our diesel 5 Series. Fast Audis now also have a significantly rear-biased torque split, 40:60 front/rear though this is variable and up to 70 per cent can go to the front or up to 85 per cent to the rear via the mechanical centre diff and a locking Sport rear differential. Give it the beans and you feel the rear coming into play. Then there’s the steering that is accurate and linear in the
THE GT ISN’T A SEXIER E 63. IT SITS PROUD AT THE TOP OF THE AMG LINEUP
way it responds, well-weighted too, and all the better for having a sensibly-sized steering wheel rim and not overly fat like M cars.
And now I will let you in on something else. The Audi can actually carry more corner speed, and you can get on the gas earlier and harder than the M5 Competition. Drive the Audi at the same speed as the M5 breaks traction in MDM mode and nothing happens. It just goes round the bend, a whiff of body roll, but that’s it. Turn up the wick and it wiggles its tush. Turn the volume all the way up and only then it starts to twerk. Now you notice the body roll, a consequence of all the plushness, and now you get the tail coming out when you give it way too much gas. Getting the Audi to slide needs significant commitment and speed, the M5 not so much. Half a turn of lock is enough to catch it, that’s because the Audi will not allow a slide that necessitates more steering lock to catch. It makes the M5 more entertaining, of that there’s no question, but it also means the RS7 is faster round bends. And I stuck Aatish in the back while belting up our hill climb in both of these cars and his breakfast made a break from his stomach much earlier in the BMW.
So passengers get less violently sick in the RS7 and of course it is more comfortable. Slip into the back and the coupe roofline means headroom isn’t abundant but
THE AUDI CAN CARRY MORE CORNER SPEED AND YOU CAN GET ON THE GAS EARLIER AND HARDER
THAN THE M5
it has more knee room than the M5, along with softer and more accommodating seats. The M5 is firm and a touch unyielding, but it can be used daily if you’re a committed enthusiast. Not the GT 63 though. The ride is too stiff and the seats too hard to be termed comfortable. This is a trophy car to be put on display when the occasion demands it. And that makes the choice an easy one. If you want to be noticed, want all the bells and whistles and money is no object, the AMG is one hell of a machine to have in your garage. It is the ultimate 4-door super-saloon. But if you want something ballistic that is less conspicuous and can be used on an everyday basis, the Audi is the clear winner.
Audi, in fact, make an even better, even more desirable and even more usable super-saloon. Unfortunately too few of you bought the RS6 Avant for Audi India to make a business case for its return; we only have ourselves to blame.
Which leaves us with BMW M5 as the benchmark four-door thunder saloon to lust after. It delivers thrills, irrespective of skill levels. It has pedigree. It has desirability. Its predecessors have done enough to qualify the M5 as an icon of our times. There’s a motorsport connect. The M badge when attached to a 5 Series, means something. It resonates with us enthusiasts. You don’t need anything more. ⌧