Fifth Gear Season 20 Episode 2 - Mustang Boss 302, BMW 1M Coupe, Audi RS3

[trev0006]

Fifth Gear Season 20 Episode 2 - Mustang Boss 302, BMW 1M Coupe, Audi RS3

[Benman]

I like the Boss! I new they'd complain about understeer on the RS 3, but I was surprised they had so much.

[Joker]

Credit where it's due the 1M won this test and I doubt any driving style would have got the RS3 ahead, whether it was Tiff's super neat style or rally master Higgins all guns blazing approach. Though I personally don't think adopting a rally style did it any favours.

[Alaric]

http://www.fastestlaps.com/tracks/adria.html

[tailpipe]

Videos like this made me buy the E46 BMW M3 that I used to own. On a track, in the dry, few things are more fun than rear wheel drive car with more power than traction.

Now let's rejoin the real world. In winter, on wet and icy roads, when you want to be able to press on in all conditions, you need your car to understeer on the limit. You correct understeer simply by backing off the throttle. Moreover, on the rare occasions when your AWD car does lose traction, it will often behave as if it is in fact gently oversteering - so you can catch it.

This is all about predictable control. You really need this level of precision when the roads are less than dry and you're pushing on. I remember very well accelerating onto a motorway slip road in my M3. I failed to spot an accumulation of wet leaves that made the road slippery. one side of the car slid and I struggled to remain facing in the desired direction of travel.

You all know this. That's why you're Audi fans. But it drives me bonkers when w**kers like Tiff Needell criticise Audis for not being something they never intended to be. The RS3 is not a track car. It is a road car. On the road it is brilliant.

I would like to see this test repeated on a wet winter road or track. Then we'll see who wins it.

Even if the RS3 is bested by the BMW 1-Series M, both are incredibly fast cars. The acceleration is savage. I find the RS3 considerably more powerful than my old M3.

I actually think that this test was fixed.

[Amar]

They were timing with and old iPhone, hardly accurate. Both great cars, I'm leaning more towards the BMW myself.

[Joker]

I was right with you Tailpipe right up to the point when you said the race was a fix. It's no fix the 1M won because it's basic setup lends itself to the track far better than what the RS3 would, it's only the time gap of the win that is questionable and this might be to do with the way the two cars were driven on their timed lap.

In any case the 1M could stay in touch for long against an RS3 on the road without either backing off or ending up in a ditch because it's not an easy car to drive quickly without overstepping the mark which isn't really possible on the road.

[Ruergard]

I would like to see this test repeated on a wet winter road or track. Then we'll see who wins it.

Or just a twisty piece of road. The RS3 will take that even if it's not wet.

The 1M is a different kind of car, much more suited for track work. For me? I drive on roads and would therefor take the RS3 on my driveway.

[tailpipe]

I was right with you Tailpipe right up to the point when you said the race was a fix. It's no fix the 1M won because it's basic setup lends itself to the track far better than what the RS3 would, it's only the time gap of the win that is questionable and this might be to do with the way the two cars were driven on their timed lap.

In any case the 1M could stay in touch for long against an RS3 on the road without either backing off or ending up in a ditch because it's not an easy car to drive quickly without overstepping the mark which isn't really possible on the road.

What I mean by fix is choosing to test both cars on a track rather than on a twisty B-road in Scotland. I would bet that BMW arranged and funded this test simply to promote its car above the RS3. I don't mean the times were fixed, although the method (using iPhone stopwatch app) was far from empirical.

[Amar]

People need to stop making excuses for the RS 3, yeah the iPhone thing was ridiculous but BMW paying off Fifth Gear is just stupid. Every BMW I have driven is in another league in the way it drives to an Audi. They just can't compete with BMW when it comes to steering and handling/chassis, apart from really needing quattro or the extra room I cannot see any reason for choosing the Audi, although I love four wheel drive grip I reckon I'd still go for the BMW as it is no doubt a better product.

[doodlebug]

Depends what you want though. Not all about the way it drives. Try and get a child seat in the 1M...err no chance. I still prefer the Audi styling in and out, BMW does nothing for me at all, the dash looks like something out of Star Trek.

You can't say that the R8 isn't a great handling car. The RS4 was superior to the M3 available at the time of introduction. So it's a rather large sweeping statement to say Audi can't compete.

Bottom line, look at their sales, they are clearly doing something right, better than BMW right now in the UK.

[Amar]

My dads friend has the RS3 and I've seen the 1M at BMW and my god does it look stunning in the flesh, its got what we love about old school RS Audis, big fat beefy arches x2. Styling is all down to your own personal taste and after sitting in the BMW, I thought the interior was fab. Okay, it was a sweeping statement. But after the B7 RS 4 and R8 you'd think all Audi models would be sprinkled with the same fairy dust, but no, did you see the Top Gear M3 vs RS 5 test!? Instead of going forwards, they've gone backwards. I've been flown to Munich by Audi and seen some exclusive previews at a launch event and listened to all the presentations on how Audi sell more cars worldwide then BMW and Mercedes but the figures suggest something else. I do see a lot more Audis in the UK then BMW and they are nearly all front wheel drive 2.0 TDIs with S Line styling, it doesn't mean they are a better product though, 99% of magazine reviews I read including the C7 A6 one put the BMW first. After driving both its clear to see why and this is why I got myself a BMW 320D coupe M Sport over the A4 as my daily as its was in another league IMO. I know my RS 6 is far from the best handling car in the world, but I love it, and that is all that matters.

[tailpipe]

@Amar

I used to own a BMW E46 M3. It was one of a number of BMWs I've owned. I've also had the pleasure of driving the original Audi Quattro, Audi RS4 and now the RS3. Based on my own experience, I just don't agree that that BMWs are better. They're certainly not better built. If you buy into the BMW 'Kool Aid' propaganda that RWD is better, good for you. It's fine on a track, but useless on normal roads and especially so in winter. That's bitter experience talking: my M3 left me stranded on three separate occasions. No Audi Quattro has ever done the same.

In the real world, you need a car to understeer on the limit not oversteer, because the ability to control oversteer depends on so many factors beyond the driver's control. Yes, it takes a certain driving ability to control oversteer - and there's a sort of macho appeal to steering a RWD Beemer on the throttle - but to do so on a public road, on a stretch of wet tarmac that you don'y know very well, with your family in the back, and with other cars coming from the opposite direction is just madness. And that's where most of us drive 99.9% of the time.

Indeed, these very factors have finally convinced BMW to start making front-wheel drive cars. In the meantime, it has to resort to arranging tests it knows it can win. Which is why I find Fifth Gear's so-called track comparison of the RS3 v. 1-Series M so irritatingly contrived.

Finally, without wishing to describe you as naive, car manufacturers often cheat in road tests. Look at the recent track test of the McLaren MP4-12C versus the Ferrari 458. Ferrari brought a slightly tweaked version of the car to the test along with a variety of different tyre options and an entire support crew. The car wasn't given to the testers until Ferrari had optimised it for that particular track. It wasn't until the recent Nurburgring test on standard (not semi-slick) tyres that we found out the Macca was 10 seconds faster round the Ring than the 458.

P.S. No one is making excuses for the RS3. It just pi***s me off when people criticise it for being something it was never intended to be. Audi is doing very well at the moment, which is often reason enough for some people to criticise it.

[doodlebug]

I completely agree tailpipe. How many of us hoon around a track regularly? If I was doing that I wouldn't buy an RS3 or a 1M. I'd be flying around in a Caterham or an Aero or something else geared to be on a track.

I'll settle for the compromise, something I can have some fun in, but also give my wife the keys to and/or ferry the child around in without worrying about ditches and trees!

Bejeezers, how can anything diesel be fun

[Joker]

I've nothing against someone preferring BMW to Audi or preferring RWD to Quattro, each to their own but I take it personal when someone claims that BMW are superior in every way because it's not true. They definitely make better fair weather track cars (excluding the R8 of course) but even they the difference of their superiority varies from track to track and on occasions when all things are equal like power and weight as with the TTRS and 1M it's usually the Audi which is quicker, the same is true with the RS vs M3, sure their chassis doesn't listen as well to the throttle but it's still a rewarding drive.

I find the majority of people who rant on about how much better the BMW handles can't drive worth a damn anyway.