Where the minuses occur, they do so with a pervading sense of inevitability. That the new V6 plays as compelling a part in that narrative as the V8 did in the old car’s motley charm is a massive plus in its favour. Tie in a Dynamic steering system which actually comes good at outside-lane motorway speeds and suddenly you’ve got a two-door RS car persuasively capable of crossing a continent. In Comfort mode, the traditionally nagging short-wave stiffness has been uncoiled by adaptive dampers with enough latitude to finally deliver a sympathetic and supple primary ride. Tested on super-heated stretches of deserted French Autoroute, the RS5 can be characterised as easily the most comfortable car in Audi’s range. Its surge is prodigious, unthreatening and prolonged – any concern about the Tiptronic’s lacklustre showing in the Audi S5 is swept away by its sure handling of the many rhythmic upshifts required.Īround this entirely different sort of engine, Audi has moulded a palpably different sort of car. Where its predecessor dispensed progress in escalating lunges to the redline, the V6 unfurls itself through the medium of the mid range. Audi Sport has persevered with the soundtrack – boldly equating it to the turbocharged V6 that powered the B5-generation RS4 – but its bass-edged waffle doesn’t quite cut it. The inside also conforms to type, which is to say immaculate and brilliantly made and utterly endearing to touch and look at. The proportions feel about the same, too, despite the 74mm of additional length predominately donated by the MLB’s larger wheelbase. The RS5 signals a mild overhaul of the brand’s styling approach – although with its blistered arches, lacerated air intakes and pothole-big oval exhaust pipes, it establishes a familiar scene. Peak torque, predictably, is dramatically superior, the V6 summoning up 600Nm from 1900rpm. Outputs are slightly different, too, Audi Sport having eked out 7kW more so it can claim to match the outgoing V8’s 331kW. That means the car shares its V6 with the second-generation Panamera 4S, but not an entire driveline. There’s also a transmission change to a ZF eight-speed torque converter auto. The chassis is new, too, with a five-link arrangement at the front and back, paired with adaptive dampers. It is lighter by 60kg in its cooking format (thanks mostly to the 31kg-lighter V6), the mechanical rear ‘sport’ differential can complement the quattro all-wheel drive system and wheel selective torque control. A couple of the new car’s modifications then are notable out of the gate. However, memories of the departed V8 provide not only a signpost to the previous RS5’s most likeable fixture, but also quattro GmbH – the entity which has now morphed into Audi Sport.Ĭonsequently, the introduction of its latest two-door, four-seat coupe has been carefully juxtaposed with the mention of ‘gran turismo’ a notable divergence for a car previously expected to fight with the BMW M4 and Mercedes-AMG C63 Coupe. Naturally, on paper, it is superior in almost every sense. Its replacement is the all-new 2.9-litre twin-turbocharged V6 co-developed with Porsche. Not because it was particularly good overall, but rather because it was the final refuge of Ingolstadt’s 4.2-litre V8 arguably the naturally aspirated multi-cylinder engine of the last decade. Before we talk about the new RS5, we’d be remiss not to sound a rhetoric last post at the departure of the old model.
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