There’s no getting away from the fact that, on these test vehicles, the BMW is working with a front tyre contact patch only 85 per cent as big as that of the Audi. This planted, settled feel inspires confidence into the braking zone, knowing that the BMW’s superior rebound damping is giving the narrower Bridgestone Potenza S007 tyres (245/35 R20 up front and 275/30 R20 at the back) every opportunity to sniff out grip. In fact, the ride in the M850i is better in its most focused Sport Plus mode than the RS7’s is in Comfort. The initial impression is that the suspension feels far better resolved. There’s also the temptation to utilise the agility of the four-wheel steering by turning late and hard, but this only introduces understeer, not helped by the Audi’s standard Hankook Ventus S1 Evo tyres rubber we’d put in the good, not great category.Ĭlimb into the BMW and while it can’t hold station with the Audi in terms of straight-line grunt, it’s clear that this one’s a grower. ![]() Even with its clever suspension, there’s a constant and slightly tiresome bob and patter to the front end, not wholly unlike a 964-gen Porsche 911. What it never does is settle cleanly into the corner. You can brake later, it’s sharper to the apex and more communicative in turn in. The rugged mountain twisties of Reefton Spur are about as far from the micron-burnished hotmix of this pair’s autobahn homes but act as the perfect laboratory to pare things back to handling fundamentals. The route chosen was one that would certainly punt both vehicles a long way outside anything that could be described as their natural comfort zone. Like most of these sensory sleights of hand, however, the illusion is transitory, so when driven hard the two cars begin to show their raw talent is a more unfiltered manner. The overall effect is to trick you into thinking that the Ingolstadter is carrying about 250 kegs less. Much of that is down to the steering, which feeds more back through its thinner rim than the rather taciturn 8 Series, and which also dives quickly for the apex thanks to four-wheel steer. Yet having swapped into the RS7 for our test route, it’s clear within the first few metres that it feels lighter and more alert. Still, the BMW is lighter than the Audi, despite the latter’s much-vaunted aluminium componentry, the M850i tipping the scales at 1995kg before options and the Audi 2065kg. Of course, these are the exact same outputs of another elegant five-seat notchback in BMW’s range, the M550i xDrive sedan, a car which retails at $125,000 less (or $140,000 for the marginally more austere Pure version) and carries 80kg less timber up the strip, but that’s an argument for another day. Nevertheless, 390kW and 750Nm is nothing to be sneezed at. Had Mercedes-AMG made an E63 Coupe with the 450kW/850Nm V8, that would have been comparable but as it stands, the pinnacle of that range is the $179,335 six-pot 320kW/520Nm E53 AMG which would have been massacred by the RS7.ĭespite its 4.4-litre engine boasting another 401cc of swept capacity over the RS7, the BMW can’t match the Audi’s outputs. With 441kW and 800Nm, it’s within a sniff of a $409,500 Porsche Panamera Turbo S (463kW/820Nm). On a strict bang for your buck basis, the RS7 Sportback appears the more convincing case. Were we to have brought the M8 Competition Gran Coupe out to play, that would have been $354,900 worth of jingle-jangle or, to put it another way, only a couple of option choices off the prices of an RS7 and a TT RS combined. ![]() The M850i xDrive Gran Coupe carries a price tag of $277,900, a not insignificant premium of $53,900. As it stands, without taking options into account, the Audi RS Sportback retails at $224,000. ![]() It’s basically because the big Eight is so much more expensive than the equivalent Audi. Whereas there’s an element of rightness about the RS7’s shape that rests easily on the eye, the 8 Series Gran Coupe is a more complex, challenging shape, with some interesting details, such as the reinterpretation of the Hofmeister kink in the rearmost side window that looks almost Stinger-like.Īt this point you’re probably asking why we’ve lined up the very pinnacle of the Audi A7 range with the penultimate driving machine in the 8 Series Gran Coupe walk-up. Sitting on a wheelbase of 3023mm versus the Audi’s 2934mm, the Munich express is a long, low and lithe thing, its bulk disguised by some svelte detailing. The pugnacious, foursquare stance of the Audi delivers in terms of road presence, especially in contrast to the lower-key BMW M850i xDrive Gran Coupe.
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