Fortune magazine:S5 better choice than M5

[KK265]

http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/22/auto...ion=2007082216

[RussianM3_dude]

Some British mag, Evo I think, thought the regular diesel A5 was better then the S5.

[Leadfoot]

Personally after driving both and even taking out the equation of the S5 is way quicker the A5 3.0TDi though a great car still isn't close in comparison to the S5. On one of the very few occasions I will have to disagree with EVO.

I reckon they problem is they were expecting a RS4 in the S5 and it isn't there and so rated it as only a cruiser. Hopefully when they compare against other rivals like AUTOCAR did they will appreciate that the S5 actually is a pretty good all rounder.

[Sanjuro]

I wonder if a Corolla is a better choice than a Ram - I guess that journalist is the right one to ask.

Two very different vehicles to be comparing there.

S5 is a good thing though.

[Leadfoot]

The test is a nonsense but not to the extreme that you will think, in this week's AUTOEXPRESS they tested 20 fun cars of the moment on both track and road and surprise, surprise the S5 and M5 were side by side, finishing 17th and 16th respectively and though the M5 finished ahead of the Audi they said that when the straw poll of cars in the test was revealed among the testers it was the S5 which most of them wanted for the long journey home.

But back to the track, surprisingly the Audi was only 1.3s slower around the Anglesey Race Circuit of which I have provided the layout of the track.
Anglesey_Circuit
The track in question I believe was the National which you will see combines hairpin, long fast corners and two longish straights which would allow the M5 to get in to it's stride so in reality the S5 is out cornering the big Beemer. Oh by the way, the order of times at the track are as follows

1st Porsche GT3RS - 61.6s
2nd Lotus 2-ELEVEN - 62.0s
3rd Audi R8 - 63.0s (manual with MagneticRide)
4th BMW M5 - 65.5s
5th Porsche Cayman S - 66.5s
6th Audi S5 - 66.8s
7th Nissan 350Z - 67.1s
8th Mercedes CL63amg - 67.2s
9th Vauxhall VRX8 - 67.5s
10th Megane F1 Team R26 - 68.2s

The real surprise was the little difference between the Cayman S and the S5, both are near identical in acceleration so they were basically cornering around the track at the same speed, amazing when you consider that the Cayman was vote best overall.

[Z07]

Has anyone asked how and why an S5 is being compared to an M5? Not really the same type of car.

[Leadfoot]

Remember my comments on how closer the Cayman S and S5 were on the track, well I found this on Motortrend virtual, a comparison between the Z4M Coupe and the Cayman S, or should I say no comparison at all.

http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/...sche_cayman_s/

Clearly Audi make better handling cars based on what is seen in this and the other virtual tests.