Scott Reynolds
Staff Writer
If Dr. Frankenstein had hidden his creation under the hood of a car, he would have called it S4. Audi has created a monster, but many will never know it. The Audi S4 is a 344-horsepower beast of a car with the same clean, timeless lines of one of Audi’s top sellers, the A4.
Comparing the S4 to the A4, however, may be just a bit worse than comparing apples and oranges. Though they may look similar at a glance, the S4 and A4 are two very different animals. The S4 is loaded with standard features such as sporty 18-inch Avus wheels, speed-adaptive power steering and a specialty palette of colors. None of these features are even options on the A4. On the inside, the S4 comes with genuine and luxurious birch, vavona, or walnut wood inlays or a more sporty aluminum-metal finish. True to its performance and athletic abilities, the car also comes standard with Recaro racing seats that come in a leather-cloth combination but can be fully wrapped in leather. Not to be left out, even the back seats are inspired by Recaro.
The irony of the whole thing is, however, if customers casually stroll through an Audi car lot, chances are they might not notice the difference. The S4 maintains all the clean and simple external features of the A4 with the addition of subtle design cues such as a more stately grill, chrome side mirrors, a small (but effective) lip spoiler and beefy dual exhaust pipes. Enhancements like these aren’t that rare on many performance sedans. These “sleeper” performance cars seem to be a growing trend in the car market, and serve as one of the main inspirations for my wanting to test the S4 specifically. Dating back to perhaps the late-model M3 sedan, the public has been bombarded by performance-sedan offerings from many carmakers. For example, the recently released Cadillac CTS-V uses a big, Corvette-based V8 as a power plant. Others include the Chrysler 300 C Hemi (and in the past month, SRT-8), Volvo S60 R, the entire AMG line up from Mercedes-Benz, and the list continues. Needless to say, a market niche that Audi and BMW used to dominate is filling up with some pretty serious competitors.
So what does the S4 bring to the table for performance? Well, it is one heck of a fun car to take the kids to their soccer game … quickly. The S4’s 4.2-liter V8 coupled with its six-speed manual pulls the car from rest to 60 mph in five seconds flat. I specifically used “pulls” because when I really put my foot down, the intense 302-foot-pound torque yanked at my guts; it hit my stomach like a ton of bricks. The car covers the quarter mile in about 13.5 seconds and can sail on up to an electronically limited top speed of 155 mph. These numbers make the S4 one of the fastest sedans on the road.
Even if the S4 isn’t as quick as others in a straight line, it can make up for it in the curves. Audi’s hands-down amazing, racing-inspired Quattro all-wheel drive system is outstanding. This superb system allows the S4 to devour corners. A popular and respected BBC automotive TV program, “Top Gear,” tests all kinds of cars from the Ford Focus to the performance benchmark Ferrari Enzo and everything in between. During each episode they have the same professional driver hammer the cars through the same on-location track. When testing the BMW M3 and Audi S4, the M3 was faster in a straight line. I doubt anyone will argue this point, but the interesting part is that the S4 posted a time 0.9 seconds faster than the other cars around the track. In racing, this is quite a margin. In fact, this gap gives enough space for the Porsche 911 Turbo and NSX Type-R to squeeze between the fast S4 time and the slower M3. It also means that on “Top Gear’s” list of “Power Laps,” the S4 is one of the least expensive cars to even appear, much less place so high, in the rankings. In my opinion, this is what really matters.
Sometimes people want more than they can have. People want performance. People want safety. People want room. People want style. Audi has found the solution and produced a car accordingly. During my turn at the wheel, I had no problem driving as if I had stolen the car. The S4 loves to rev high, corner aggressively and brake hard. However, and most importantly, I also had no trouble poking around like a grandmother. I made an effort of meandering like this for a few minutes just to see how easily I could get around the average streets.
This car is well suited as a grocery-getter, and it is comfortable enough to take five passengers down the street or on a cross-country road trip. The interior is luxurious and yields a sense of quality on all its tangible surfaces. For example, the thicker, leather-wrapped steering wheel and the soft, yet tacky, controls to the boomng ten-speaker sound system, with subwoofer, all add up to a great fit and finish.
Even with the manual transmission, the car has good manners. Its clutch feel is light enough to manage traffic and parking lots yet responsive to the thrashing I can unleash on the straights. In addition, it isn’t overly stiff and jarring like many performance cars, but rather it’s buttery and smooth right up to the contact point. The six-speed manual has fairly short throws and a solid feel going into gears. The suspension is stiff enough to give the right amount of feedback during hard corners but soft enough to absorb bumps and imperfections when it needs to. Finally, the brakes provide ample stopping power without fade and without the on-or-off feeling of some performance brakes.
The S4 is a bargain for its class. It comes well equipped with more than enough standard features to keep me happy for $46,570. With full-leather seating and other desirable options, my test car had a sticker price of $52,055. The S4 is also available in Cabriolet (convertible) and Avant (station wagon) body styles.
01-20-2005
