The Audi RS5 is one of the quickest, and best overall Audi four-seat coupés ever. BERNIE HELLBERG spent a week behind its wheel.
It has taken three years for the team at Audi Sport to design and develop the 2018 Audi RS5. Three years of rethinking and re-engineering Audi’s A5 coupé into a high-performance machine, one that Audi says draws inspiration from the Audi 90 Quattro IMSA GTO race cars of the 1980s. Near the end of that process, RS5 prototypes spent three weeks lapping the Nürburgring North Loop, recording over 8,000 km of hard-core high-speed testing.
The result is one of Audi’s quickest and fastest four-seat coupés ever. Unfortunately, Metro Police generally have little interest in test drivers sampling the RS5’s top speed or its 3.7-second zero to 100 km/h acceleration.
In the South African line-up, the A5 family now offers no less than 31 models in three body styles. RS models, which also include the RS3, RS7 and TT RS, are maximum performance vehicles that sit at the top of their model lines and battle BMW’s M products and Mercedes-AMG for enthusiast desires. The 2018 RS5 then, is aimed squarely at the BMW M4 and Mercedes C63 Coupé.
SPEC GALORE
Like its competition, the Audi RS5 has ditched natural aspiration for turbocharging. Gone is the model’s high-revving 4.2-litre V8, replaced by an aluminium 2.9-litre, twin-turbo V6 it shares with the Porsche Panamera 4S. Audi Sport has tweaked the engine for higher performance, lowering its compression ratio from 10.5:1 to 10:1, adding duration to its camshafts, and adding boost. The gains are really on the torque side. In the Audi, the engine is rated at 331 kW at 5,700 r/min and 600 Nm of torque at 1,900 r/min, while it’s rated slightly lower in the Porsche. More important, the boosted V6 produces much more torque than the old V8 did, and it’s almost 30 kg lighter.
The engine’s packaging is also unique to the Audi and includes stainless steel intake tubing for improved flow and an oil cooler that’s mounted parallel to the ground ahead of the radiator to generate additional downforce. The RS5’s seven-speed dual-clutch transmission is also history, replaced by a ZF-supplied eight-speed automatic. This is the same transmission used in the RS7, and Audi made the switch because the dual-clutch could not handle the required amount of torque. Controlling the temperature and durability of the unit’s torque converter needed the engineers to dial down the engine speed allowed by the RS5’s launch control from 4,000- to 3,300 r/min. But the additional torque of the V6 and the transmission’s shorter ratios more than make up for it, quickening the RS5’s 100 km/h sprint from 4.5 seconds to just 3.7, which Audi says is quicker than the competition.
Audi Drive Select is standard, and the RS5 rides well in Comfort mode, and in general, the suspension soaks up larger impacts cleanly, but you can still feel enough in the seat to know you’re not driving a standard A5. The RS5 gets standard 20” wheels, which do a great job of telegraphing road imperfections to the occupants.
EXCELLENT DRIVEABILITY
Switch to Dynamic mode, and the RS5’s suspension becomes even stiffer, rivalling the R8 V10 Plus. In Dynamic, the ride can be bouncy, although it’s never really harsh. Dynamic mode also sharpens throttle response, changes the transmission’s shift points, ups the steering effort, and turns up the volume on the engine sounds. Unlike in Normal mode, Dynamic mode permanently opens the exhaust flaps on the RS5, amplifying the V6’s pleasant burble.
Risking a run-in with the law, we may have pushed the RS5 past the legal limit on the odd occasion. The eight-speed is quick with a few downshifts, and the turbo V6 pulls hard to its 6,700 r/min red line.
Nail the throttle at speed, and the Audi’s acceleration pushes you into its firm, well-bolstered RS Sport Seat and holds you there. The transmission snatches fifth gear at 150 km/h, and the thrust continues essentially uninterrupted. Keep your foot down, and the coupé will keep the needle north of the arrest zone.
Exploring the Audi’s handling on a few twistier side roads revealed, that although it’s heavier than the BMW M4, the RS5 hides its heft well with quick response and impressive levels of grip. It likes to be manoeuvred hard and puts the power down so nicely that you don’t have to be delicate with the throttle.
In corners, the system’s Quattro Sport Rear Differential, which is an entirely mechanical unit, can also send all available rear torque to either rear wheel, and in Dynamic mode, it transfers more torque to the outer rear wheel to help the car turn. Audi also allows you to shut off the coupé’s stability control, but there’s also a Sport setting with more aggressive tyre slip thresholds.
Its brakes are massive too. The RS5 gets 376 mm front cross-drilled rotors with six-piston callipers in black or red with the RS logo. Those are bigger front rotors than you’ll find on a Porsche 911 Targa 4 GTS.
LAST WORD
From the curb, the new RS5 packs attitude. Audi has bulged out its fenders over half an inch, dressed its mirrors and grille surround in matte aluminium trim, added larger air intakes to the front bumper, gloss black side sills to the doors and widened the grille which gets a black honeycomb mesh. In back there’s a diffuser, large oval exhaust pipes and a black lip spoiler. But, the coolest part is the sizable QUATTRO script on the front spoiler.
As good as the new RS5 Coupé is — and it is incredibly good — it comes in slightly more expensive than the Mercedes C63, although cheaper than the standard BMW M4 – both of which are rear-wheel drive. We’re not sure if a convertible is in the works, but after the drive, which we managed to complete without a run-in with the law, an RS5 open top seems like a really great idea to us.
