Audi RS7 Video Review – Acceleration, Noise and Power

The Audi RS7 – power of a monster

In our latest Cars.co.za feature film we experience how quickly the Audi RS7 accelerates, we debate where that wonderful exhaust noise comes from, and we see just how many everyday items this 4-door supercar can swallow in the boot.

Audi is obviously not content with making posh, fast limos. They want to make the fastest, poshest limos, and they have done, with the new RS7. It’s a car that uses the same engine as the Bentley Continental GTV8, a twin-turbo, 4.0 litre cleverly designed V8 powerplant that produces 412 kW and a monstrous 700 Nm.

In a car made mostly from aluminium to keep the weight down, the Audi RS7 leaps off the line. As you’ll see, it genuinely gave me a fright. And then I did it again and it gave me a headache. It’s a brutal, savage kind of acceleration, harnessed by quattro drive which means the car just grips and goes. No drama, no fuss. Just mind-bending, stomach-churning forward motion.

And that is sort of the issue with this car. It is a supercar, on paper, but in day to day driving it doesn’t feel like one. It can probably hustle with the best of the other Germans, it easily has the luxury spec to match, and the headline figures are astonishing, but can we really call it a supercar? We’ve tried to answer that.

Rivals

I’ve gone ahead and compared the Audi RS7 to three of its very German, very interesting rivals. The Mercedes CLS63 AMG and the BMW M6 Gran Coupe.

While you could strictly compare the Audi RS7 to the Mercedes E 63 AMG and BMW M5, it’s not entirely fair as the RS7 is essentially a special variant of the A6, slotting into the niche gap between the A8 and the A6. In the same way as BMW created the 6 Series to slot in between the 5- and 7-Series, and Merc created the CLS to fill the gap no one knew existed between the E Class and the S Class.

They are all very close on price, they all have superbly powerful, growling, turbocharged V8 engines, and they all go about their business in a very serious, Autobahn-eating kind of way.

My pick of the bunch would actually be none of these. I’d go for the cheaper Audi RS6 Avant, which has the same motor as the RS7, the BMW M5, which is R250 000 cheaper, or the Mercedes CLS 63 AMG Shooting Brake, which is just epic to drive and epic to look at.

Car Comparisons

If you’re into stats and things, here’s a detailed car comparison between our three hero cars:

 Audi RS7 gallery