THE REBOOT
When you’re up against cars as formidable as the M4 and C63, you really need to be on your game. Fortunately, the new RS5 is fighting it
LAST TIME AUDI took this road, it immediately understeered into the undergrowth. The previous RS5 might have been blessed with one of the finest naturally aspirated V8s in the business – essentially the same gem that powered the first R8 supercar – but its stodgy steering, leaden ride and uninspiring chassis earned it three out of five stars and a last place against BMW M3, Mercedes C63 AMG and Lexus IS-F in a 2010 CAR group test.
The second-generation RS5, created by the newly christened Audi Sport division, offers the chance of redemption. Despite being 74mm longer at 4723mm, the RS5 sheds around 60kg at a still hefty 1665kg, thanks to the new MLB Evo platform and its highstrength steel/lightweight aluminium mix, as already seen on the A4 saloon. The sport rear differential is standard in the UK, and while quattro typically splits at 40/60 front-to-rear, there’s an Audi picture of the RS5 oversteering on track with smoke photoshopped all over the rear tyres. Blimey. Definitely have a crack at that.
Climb aboard, fire up the twin-turbo V6 and murmur out onto the road and the improvements to the ride and steering are instantly apparent. There’s a long-legged pliancy to suspension movements in the Comfort setting, and while it’s not perfect – some corrugated stretches do create patter – mostly it’s very supple. The electrically assisted steering also has a lighter, more easy-going feel. Again it’s not perfect – it’s too sluggish immediately off-centre – but its light, progressive weighting helps to shrug off all those kilos and make the RS5 feel alert, friendly and happy to be chucked about.
But there’s also an elephant in the room: the V8 woofle has gone, so too the twin-clutch gearbox. Instead, there’s a new 2.9-litre V6 with twin turbochargers nestled between the banks, and a more conventional eight-speed Tiptronic auto gearbox. At 444bhp theV6 is no more powerful than the previous eight, but monsters the old car’s torque with 443lb ft, a whopping 125lb ft extra. And of course the downsizing makes it perform better in the lab, with 32.5mpg and 197g/km comparing with the old car’s 26.9mpg and 246g/km.
Worst-case scenario? That everything Audi Sport has tried to give us with the chassis it’s taken away with the engine. But you forget all about such nonsense within a few miles. The new V6 sounds seriously good, with a deep, sophisticated burble, a warbly crooning on harder throttle openings and a delivery so smooth it’d make George Clooney sound like a miner on a picket line.
It’s never intrusive during a motorway cruise – overall refinement is very impressive, including the muted wind- and tyre noise – and yet that sound signature is always there, always reminding you why you didn’t just buy a TDI. Select Dynamic and the noise through the optional sports exhaust ramps up.
The new engine doesn’t just sound good. Power floods in from below 2000rpm, and from 3500rpm seamlessly raises its game, kicking on with another burst of speed to leave even enthusiastic Golf Rs panting and incredulous. The V6 gives the RS5 a genuinely ferocious turn of speed that lets you pick off a line of traffic like you’re passing a convoy of tractors. I’d be nd astonished if the old V8 got close.
Peak power at 5700rpm (the engine revs to 7200rpm) might sound underwhelming but it doesn’t feel that way because the V6 hauls so hard during the final 3000rpm or so, and you’ll only hit the limiter if you’ve made a mistake, rather than because you anticipated faster crank rotations. The throttle isn’t quite as crisp as the V8’s, and there is a small amount of turbo lag, but these are things you look for rather than bugbears that stand out. The over-riding sensation is of response and speed without trigger-happiness, refinement without laziness. The gearbox, too, impresses, doing all the smooth and wafty stuff you expect, but punching in shifts with real conviction should you be in a hurry. The ratios are beautifully spaced too, so that with each shift you plop straight back into the powerband – gear, gear, gear, speed, speeeed.
So, this new RS5… it’s good. Yours for a whisker under £63k, it costs about the same as the entry-level MercedesAMG C63, £5k more than the basic BMW M4 – see p62 for how they compare – but our test car is optioned by the price of a mid-spec VW Polo to £78k. Key treats include 20-inch alloys (19s are standard) for £2k, adaptive sports suspension (£2k), panoramic sunroof (£1250), that all-important sports exhaust (£1200) and a near-essential top speed increase to 174mph (£1450) from 155mph – you might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. That’s the stuff that makes a difference to the driving experience. We also have some extra driving assistance kit and a Bang & Olufsen hi-fi but we don’t4
have the Dynamic steering, carbon roof or carbon-ceramic brakes.
Glinting in the morning sun, it certainly looks the part. The svelte, elegant lines of the standard car are clearly in there somewhere, but they’re pumped up with 15mm wider blistered arches, LED headlights and a six-pack for a bonnet. This RS5 might look too much like a furious bodybuilder for some, but there’s always the more restrained S5 for shrinking violets; big brother and little brother are more clearly differentiated these days.
Being an Audi, the RS5’s interior is astonishingly competent. The seats are slung satisfyingly low, and the base squishes a little as you sit down, leaving you wrapped in generous, supportive bolsters. You also notice the relatively small-sounding 7cm increase in the car’s length when you glance over your shoulder, with more glass and better visibility. There’s room for four six-footers, though the roof is scalloped over rear passengers’ heads like some kind of industrialised pudding-bowl haircut process, and they’ll sit with knees splayed, apparently giving birth to the front seats.
Fit and finish, the way alcantara and leather and metal perfectly snuggle up against each other, the click-click-click of the heater controls so you can feel every half-degree increase even if you never look away from the road, the fact that someone put as much attention into sculpting the indicator stalks as the body lines… all of it suggests a complete absence of ‘that’ll do’ thinking. Then there’s technology that puts Audi right at the front of the pack, with the brilliant Virtual Cockpit letting you display the sat-nav screen in the instrument binnacle, and our car’s optional Matrix LED headlights that maintain full beam without blinding oncoming traffic. You’ll want a longer commute.
The one misstep is the Drive Select button, the interface by which you select Comfort, Auto, Dynamic or Individual settings for the powertrain, suspension and steering. It’s positioned so far over to the left in right-hand-drive cars that you need a remote control, and it’s too fiddly.
So far my route’s barely stressed the RS5 – too much motorway cruising and not nearly enough B-road challenge. Turning off the multi-lane stuff, the chance comes to get a sense of how the new chassis responds under duress. The RS5 continues to impress.
The all-wheel drive isn’t dramatically rear-biased like, say, a Nissan GT-R’s, instead feeling far more neutral, but it’s dramatically composed, resists understeer to grip hard at the front, and hooks4
up out of hairpins like a fly flicked off a window ledge; not as exciting as the wild C63 AMG, maybe, but there’s a thrill in feeling such a powerful car claw so much traction from the road surface.
The standard six-piston brakes don’t have the stopping power of a policeman’s upright palm in the way carbon discs would, and they can get a little smelly under hard use, but they have fine feel, and are more than a match for the engine’s performance on the road. No, save the money and brake just a fraction earlier.
Less clear cut is which Drive Select mode to go for. Comfort suspension is a little too rolly for faster work, and the steering’s doziness immediately off-centre robs a certain intimacy from the way you interact with the chassis. It doesn’t ruin it, it just isn’t quite as perfectly resolved as the steering in the RS6. A faster ratio and extra definition immediately off-centre would both help. Auto tightens up the body control, but the dampers get a little too keen to tie down body movements, for a more restless edge to quick cross-country blats. A strangely stilted self-centring action also afflicts the steering, where Comfort is far more natural. Dynamic? The ride is so firm and the steering so hard to turn that you’ll either bounce off the Nordschleife on the Döttinger Höhe straight or fail to wind on enough lock for the first right-hander past the old pits.
I’m nit-picking, admittedly, and when you customise the Individual mode to Comfort chassis and steering mixed with the Dynamic powertrain and manual gearbox settings, the RS5 moves tantalising close to perfection. Make no mistake, this is a huge improvement over what went before and an unequivocal statement of intent from Audi Sport. The RS5 blends astonishing refinement, keen handling and a ferocious engine with the kind of all-wheel-drive composure its rivals can only dream of. New boss Stephan Winkelmann arrived too late to have any input on the RS5 but claims there’s nothing he’d have changed in any case – now we’ve driven it, we can see why.