RED, HOT AND BLUE RS4 VS C63 S
If you feel the need to lug stuff about at speed, is a bit of driver involvement too much to ask? Here are four very potent estates
The explosive Audi RS2, all 315hp of it, is often reckoned to be the world’s first high-performance estate. Certainly it was the first car to combine the practicality of a bigger-booted wagon body with the straight-line speed of a supercar.
Thanks to its quattro four-wheel-drive system and punchy turbocharged engine, it was actually faster to 50kph than the mighty McLaren F1 of the mid-1990s — but the first rapid estate car it was not.
BMW’s E34 M5 Touring had arrived two years before it, in 1992, albeit in lefthand-drive markets only. Another two years before that, Subaru had endowed an estate car with more power than was strictly necessary by offering the Legacy with as much as 200hp in its home market of Japan.
Whether it was Audi, BMW or Subaru that invented the fast estate is a matter for debate, then. But which manufacturer builds the best high-performance wagons in 2018? That we can answer for certain.
As the leading proponents of the breed, it’s a face-off between Audi Sport and Mercedes-AMG. First, we’ll pitch Neckarsulm’s brand new RS4 against Affalterbach’s C63 S, before lining the RS6 up against the E63 S. Only then will one of these German companies be crowned king of the crushingly fast estate car.
Beneath its bonnet, the RS4 has come full circle. Between 2006 and 2015, the Mk2 and Mk3 RS4 were propelled by highrevving, normally aspirated V8s, the kind of engine that made you prod the throttle pedal not only for the surge in acceleration but also for the serrated edge to the power delivery and the dramatic, soaring soundtrack. This fourth-gen RS4 junks the 4.2-litre V8 in favour of a twin-turbo V6 — the same configuration of motor that powered the first RS4 back in 1999.
Giving up a pair of cylinders and more than a litre of displacement to the AMG C63 S puts the RS4 at a disadvantage. The Merc’s 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 is comfortably more potent than the Audi’s V6 — in fact, with 510hp to 450hp it’s not even close — and it feels it. Whereas the RS4 is simply very quick, the C63 S has the sort of unrelenting, runaway-train straight-line performance that makes your passengers panic.
Sure, the four-wheel-drive RS4 is quicker off the line, but everywhere else the Mercedes emphatically hauls itself off into the distance. More important than its sheer performance advantage, however, is the manner with which the AMG delivers its power.
It’s a lunatic, walloping along on a tidal wave of torque, quad exhaust tips spewing forth a torrent of fire and fury, traction control fighting desperately to keep the two driven wheels from roasting the rubber wrapped around them.
The RS4? Its engine is perhaps a little more responsive but it offers nothing like the thump to your back. The soundtrack is strained and bland even though this test car, like its counterpart, is fitted with the optional sports exhaust. That’s aside from an odd, occasional whining noise under full load, as though there’s a supercharger up front rather than a pair of turbos. The V6 spins quickly to the limiter. But with all four contact patches sharing a much-reduced load, the Audi simply punts along without a hint of a drama. Effective, then, but entirely forgettable.
And yet in some important ways, this RS4 is the best of the dynasty. It has balance for one thing, thanks to the new V6 weighing some 31kg less than the old V8 and sitting further back in the chassis. This RS4 doesn’t chase its nose like RS4s of old. And if you over-commit to a corner, you’ll just as likely feel the rear end come round as sense the front pushing on. That is a deeply unusual — but brilliant — thing to feel in an Audi estate car. It means the car is less frustrating at the limit than its forebears. Out of a corner it feels positive and agile, too, the RS sport differential diverting drive to the outside rear corner to great effect.
The second huge step forward from old RS4 to new is the ride quality. Rolling on the optional RS sport suspension, the latest model has a plushness to it over rough roads whereas the previous model was tight and unyielding.
But despite those very commendable steps forward, it is the C63 S that is the more involving and rewarding performance car. It steers more faithfully, it’s more playful and agile and it’s better balanced still. The ways in which its body moves and rolls in corners makes it easier to read and manipulate at the limit, too, and if you switch the stability systems off it can play the hooligan in the finest AMG tradition. The Mercedes is simply a lot more fun.
Does a performance estate really need to be fun to drive, or is fast and competent good enough? Perhaps it is, in which case the new RS4 is a very fine car indeed. But if you happen to think that a performance car should be in some way engaging to drive regardless of its body type, as we happen to, then the Mercedes-AMG is the clear victor.