Test Drive Audi S5 Coupe since 2012

Audiintic S5.

It took a very little time driving this coupe to clearly understand what they do not know how to Audi. There do not know how to make bad cars. Why there: even mediocre and they do not know how to do. Only good. Such is one-scene
 
Any coupe by definition of an individual car, if not an egoist. Roger, too, but he is also a fade of extroverts and victims of chronic narcissism, and the coupe, on the contrary, they prefer the introverted features in whose character. The owner of the coupe exposes under the admiring views of others around himself, and his special, not like all the car, remaining until the time being in his shadow. Five Audi In this regard, as they say, the fact that the doctor prescribed: a high sideline, narrow window slits with toned glasses, attaching a roof behind all this is easy and pleasant to retire (and to double, by the way, too, it was with whom!).
 
But still the coupe is a casket with a surprise: it's worth getting out of his cozy cocoon to the light of God, and here everyone is looking at you: Well, weave, well, we have, who is it so fashionable and not like that? Yeah and feel yourself (until the movement on such a car does not become an ordinary routine), depending on the skew in your own head, or the nipple of the Earth, or a person who left the house without clothes. Moving around the city in ordinary, landslides on their good, extremely convenient, also German, but a completely nonsense sedan, did not escape the test of this kind of striptease and I on the very first evening is a pretty and stylish, glamorous lady, the owner of an expensive and pathetic car, from recently I have become my neighbor in the parking lot and not seen before my diverse test cars, I gave me much more Interested glance and with more than a benevolent smile, a conversation about
However, it is already no matter. After all, I, in turn, sat behind the wheel not ordinary, albeit a wonderful five, and S5! So, all this glamorousness, patheauxity, stylish together with all sorts of pretty young ladies goes into the background: much more important than the sports potential of this coupe, its motor and running quality. By virtue of the circumstances of the past summer, I could not take part in the European presentation test of the new coupe Audi and was very upset. Now the circumstances have developed in such a way that it was S5 who became the first car that I received for the test, barely entered the position of chief engine editor. And I found it a very kind sign.
 
There was a time of about 15 years ago, when I was more likely to convinced the critical car with four rings on the grille of the radiator, rather than their fan. However, an unprecedented high-quality jerk, which the Audi brand did in the following years, made me change the opinion at 180. And it's not even a breathtaking R8, but in the entire line of road Audi, among which the special place are occupied by models with indices S and RS. Classify the eski is quite simple: this is not yet RS, but already not the basic A-versions, which means it is a reasonable compromise between, allow itself some tautology, uncompromising sporting and comfortable practicality. And in this quality they feel very much. Well, from the s-version of the five I waited even more: because it is no longer easy to shove a powerful motor in A4, A6 or A8, causing the suspension in principle a new car. So, it turns out, I was obviously positively addicted, but it means that the demand from the new car to justify the increased expectations was more. What does it turn out more than with Audi?
 
Funny, but the manager who gave me a car to the test, poured oil into the fire, when, told about some features in the management bodies of the new Audi, completed his explanations by the phrase, which would cause live interest from a specialist in the psychology of the subconscious: Well, in the rest of the whole Just like in Audi. Not in the former Audi, notice, but simply in Audi. That is, Audi S5 is already kind of like not quite Audi
Have you still kept the ability to follow my thought?
Well, then let's see what kind of beast
 
I barely sit behind the wheel, I immediately compare S5 with a well-known BMW 335i coupe and the comparison is at first not in favor of Audi. In Treshka, as soon as you slam the door from the inside, there is a special mechanical hand helpfully gives you a seat belt buckle so that you do not pull, not tormented. There is no such convenient adaptation here, and it is necessary to perform the corresponding acrobatic etude. In general, the comparison of S5 with the most powerful conventional version of the new BMW coupe of the 3rd series suggests, of course, immediately, all these cars are the most than any direct competitors (the existing comparison with M3 is completely incorrect, it is an opponent of the future RS5). Although they externally, with all their typological similarities, they differ markedly. BMW is more elegant, refined, it even deals with unobtrusive aristocracy.
 
Audi is more brutal, more courageous, more aggressive. I would find it difficult to make a choice. Each of them is good in his own way. But, since a pleasant journey to Nürburring driving a magnificent treshki from BMW left in the memories of last year's spring, and now in front of me the steering wheel of the five from Audi, I like it more coupe. Yes, and objectively ultra-modern and richly equipped S5 salon is impressive much stronger than stylish, but rather boring, almost archaic and very spartan, despite the top category, Salon 335i.
 
But, again, this is not the main thing. It is time to properly arrange and go. It's amazing, but when I got up with my almost two-meter growth together with the chair as much as possible back (absolutely depriving the virtual passenger's living space behind), the pedal assembly and the steering wheel were unexpectedly from me very far on the verge of reach. At first it caused irritation because it will have to move to them almost close! However, such a landing as unexpectedly turned out to be extremely convenient and functional, as in the cockpit of the racing car (which reminded the landing at the wheel of TT, but in a more civilian version). All at hand, everything is very ergonomically and at the same time beautiful.
 
To start the motor, you need to drown a radio button in the nest (Option Pad button), squeezed before stopping the brake pedal and clutch, after which the arrows of the instruments describe the range of honor, and from the branded four stems of the exhaust system, it is beautifully familiar to the old escams low, juicy, Grozny Ryk, which makes nervously shuddering others, and for inside the car sinks as turns around the revolutions in magnificent sound insulation, but whenever it makes itself felt when braking the engine and sharp accelerations from below.
 
And acceleration to become a roar. Well acquainted on the usual eight and charged four V8 FSI volume of 4.2 liters is a bit deformed and gives only 354 hp Against 420 under the hood of RS4, but the moment he has 10 nm more, and even more so he is ahead of both indicators its own version under the hood S4. As a consequence, with the same limited electronics of the maximum speed S5, it is accelerated to hundreds of half a second faster than S4 sedan, which is very noticeable.
 
Moreover, this does not interfere with the acceleration of being very soft, elastic, if neither paradoxically, a combination. It is only necessary to adversely to a long-time grip in combination with a very sensitive in the beginning of his stroke the accelerator pedal, and then, as they say full of fly! Just have time to join the transmission of almost impeccably working PPC, although the elasticity of the motor with an excess is enough and less frequent switching. And in all its glory, it appears as the quality that attracts in the escah in the conditions of urban congestion the car behaves calmly, without delay, but it is worth it to nourish it, and it will instantly demonstrate his serious dynamic potential, and on a long trip will shown itself as a decent representative GT class.
 
Again, the suspension in combination with transparent steering and due to the rigidity of the body works immaculately, exclusively assembled and even made me unwittingly uncover the mouth from amazement when S5 on a very high speed slipped the unnoticed lying policeman as if he was not! The ability of this coupe calmly swallowed almost any unevenness of asphalt, almost not informing your fifth point about them is just fantastic! However, when it comes to classic Audi, it does not do without mentioning the destruction of another kind of congenital insufficient turning, especially inherent in small light cars with large heavy motors. Engineers have put noticeable efforts to ensure that if you do not save a new coupe from it, then at least reduce it. For this, they first installed the engine not before the front axle, as before, and behind it, and also changed the distribution of the moment between the front and rear axis from 50x50 to 40x60 in favor of the rear. but
 
I note at once that the test conditions on the raw winter roads of the Moscow region were not so sterile, as on the Spring Serpentine-free Spring Surpantines in the vicinity of Nürburgring, where I widged the 335i before the wheel, but even at the same time it was obvious that it was not enough to defeat the lack of turning creators S5 failed or they did not want it. In any case, while the BMW treshka obediently slides when you need, the rear wheels will outward, helping to fit into the turn, the five Audi when you exceed a certain speed at the input to about the same turn stubbornly slides even with the disabled stabilization system.
 
I do not think that more than naked Audi engineers could not solve this problem rather, they were not wanted. After all, this car is positioned as a sports coupe of a business class, and it seems that the second component of this definition from a marketing point of view is more important for the first, after all, notorious businessmen are unlikely to storm turns in the managed row. It will be enough and the exact, very informative steering control in combination with a tendency to insufficient turning, much more secure than excessive. That's the whole secret. And fans of more acute sensations wait a couple of years and then, please feel the steering wheel of the 450-strong fives with the RS index and with the intelligent distribution system between the wheels
But all these meaningful reasoning about demolition-drift, in fact, only by the way. The main thing in S5 is still not the ability to take turns anyway, but the impression that it produces in general. And the impression is, despite the fact that individual deficiencies are more than compensated by a lot of advantages, the most positive. The life behind the wheel of this very harmonious moderately sports coupe Audi becomes brighter and more pleasant, it is very dynamic, but does not drop blood with an extreme extreme, and that's what they say, and attracts in this kind of car.
 
Perhaps S5 really more than Audi. But if we consider that every new car built in Ingolstadt is always a noticeable high-quality step forward, then this is a completely authentic Audi.
 
Boris Muradov
 
 
 
 

 

A source: Motor magazine [January-February 2008]