Designed to challenge the AMG- and M- offerings from those other German auto makers, the 2011 Audi RS5 is a tidy package of blistering performance and aggressive trim. Its high performance comes without reliance on tricks—just a 4.2 liter naturally aspirated V8 that manages around 450 hp. It’s relatively thin on torque—317 foot-pounds, to be exact—but makes up for it with engine revs that top out north of 8,000 RPM. Audi’s technical wizardry isn’t just found under the hood—the RS5’s wheel-selective torque-vectoring system, and crown-gear center differential mean the car can shift a tremendous amount of power to the front or rear wheels in an instant. The result is a powerful and grippy AWD; a car that’s as comfortable on the tight turns of a race track as it is speeding along back roads on a Sunday drive.
