#RS5

“I am satisfied that you were the leader of the group.

“You have an appalling record. This was an atrocious piece of dangerous driving.

“You drove through suburban streets of Wolverhampton at speeds which meant the police car could not keep up.

“You were driving on the wrong side of the road.

“You then got on the motorway and there was a moment in that pursuit that your intention was to outrun the police helicopter.”

The auto enthusiast community is far too fragmented to ever achieve real consensus on any issue, but if there’s a single authority on performance-oriented cars, it’s Britain’s enthusiast bible evo Magazine. So when evo bashes an enthusiast-targeted model, it’s usually worth taking note of. The latest print issue of evo includes a Chris Harris review of Audi’s range-topping RS5 coupe [ online summary here], the 444 hp, V8-powered flagship of its A5 lineup, and from line one the reader can tell that something is rotten in the state of Quattro GMBH. Harris describes an attempt to blow the doors off a 328 hp S4 camera car, only to find that, three gears later, his $15k more expensive coupe had barely gained any ground on the supercharged V6-powered S4. So, what gives?