Road Test
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Chaste Scene: Audi’s monstrously powerful coupe rides up the mountain, stoically.
Our favorite part of it is the Jacinto Reyes Scenic Byway. This 38-mile stretch chisels through the Topatopa Mountains and the Los Padres National Forest, a couple hours north of Los Angeles. Most of the forest—hundreds of thousands of acres—is designated wilderness area that the National Forest Service defines as places “where earth and its community of life remain untrammeled, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” Here, you’re struck with the immensity of the landscape, by the weight of solitude, as if you’ve been transported to a hotter Alaska; it’s almost unimaginable 25 million people are only a couple hours away.
Narcissus catches his reflection in a pool.
Man isn’t here. Nor is his traffic, making this stretch of highway ideal for comparison drives, road tests, and opportunities to indulge our inner Alonso. Ride the spine of the mountain range and you’ll face a mix of high-speed sweepers, tight corners that track around road cuts, and straightaways that cross small valleys or ride along cliff faces. Distant snowcapped mountains set the horizon. It’s like a Bob Ross painting—as beautiful as it is empty. For close to 40 blissful miles, it tries the powertrain, chassis, and brakes of a car—the right place to shakedown the Audi RS5
Equivalent to BMW’s M division or Mercedes-Benz’s AMG, Audi’s Quattro GmbH skunkworks in Ingolstadt, Germany, takes an A5 and pulls, creases, vents, stamps, and punches the bodywork before festooning it with honeycomb grilles. It’s not merely a styling exercise; the suspension and drivetrain are also revamped. The RS5 has been available in Europe since 2010, but Audi has kept Americans in the waiting room for two years. In that time, and like the rest of the A5/S5 lineup for 2013, the RS5 has been refreshed with a number of upgrades.
Piano-black and metallic trim add much-needed shine to the heart of darkness.
Our last tango with the RS5 proved a bit dull. In a comparison test in September 2010, we found the European RS5 to be well-mannered but lacking the hip-thrusting soul you look for in something this expressive and beautiful. So we’ve asked it out again in the hopes that the U.S. model is more comfortable in its own skin.
This forested stretch of 33 doesn’t brook novices. One mistake here and you’ll muck up the scenery as you tumble down a cliff, smack into the side of a mountain, or start a massive forest fire by bounding off into chaparral so dry that even thinking too hard about Smokey Bear could set it aflame. In 1965, singer Johnny Cash started his own 508-acre ring of fire when his pickup’s exhaust set the wilderness ablaze. Our RS5’s fiery Misano Red paint and boisterous exhaust note are almost hot enough to do the same just sitting there.
Just north of Ojai, at Wheeler Gorge, the byway features giant outcroppings that have been hollowed out to form three tunnels. We drive repeatedly through the tunnels to listen to the wail of the RS5’s optional sports exhaust and watch fresh water dribbling from the rock face.
Specifications
VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, 4-wheel-drive, 4-passenger, 2-door coupe
PRICE AS TESTED: $77,320
BASE PRICE: $69,795
ENGINE TYPE: V-8, aluminum block and heads
Displacement: 254 cu in, 4163 cc
Power: 450 hp @ 8250 rpm
Torque: 317 lb-ft @ 4000 rpm
TRANSMISSION: 7-speed dual-clutch
automatic with manual shifting mode
DIMENSIONS:
Wheelbase: 108.3 in
Length: 183.0 in
Width: 73.2 in Height: 53.8 in
Curb weight: 4040 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS:
Zero to 60 mph: 4.4 sec
Zero to 100 mph: 10.4 sec
Zero to 130 mph: 18.5 sec
Street start, 5–60 mph: 5.0 sec
Top gear, 30–50 mph: 2.5 sec
Top gear, 50–70 mph: 3.2 sec
Standing ¼-mile: 12.8 @ 111 mph
Top speed (governor limited): 178 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 158 ft
Roadholding, 200-ft-dia skidpad: 0.96 g
FUEL ECONOMY:
EPA city/highway: 16/23 mpg
C/D observed: 16 mpg
TEST NOTES: Launch is less violent than expected, considering the 5500-rpm clutch engagement. In launch-control mode, upshifts are automatic. Brutally quick downshifts in the passing acceleration tests. The hardest downshifts I can remember with a dual clutch.
Continued…