From the May 2021 issue of Car and Driver.
In response to the question "How do you make a 600-hp sports sedan?" Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-AMG have turned in answers so similar that if this were an exam, they'd be accused of cheating.
The brands started with the bones of a buttoned-down sedan and crafted a version with a narrow-eyed performance-car glare, a dropped roofline, and a sloping tail. Each car has all-wheel drive, adaptive dampers, brake rotors the size of Saturn's rings, and a twin-turbo V-8 of at least 4.0 liters making completely unbuttoned dyno numbers. Add up all three and you get 1838 horsepower.
The Audi RS7, the BMW M8 Competition Gran Coupe, and the Mercedes-AMG GT63 S are heavyweights in price and performance. All have the sleepy menace of a tough guy no longer at his leanest but still packing a mean right hook. And left hook. And headbutt. They're just a launch-control start away from proving it.
The GT63 tops the list in both power and cost, with 630 horsepower and—prepare the smelling salts—a $199,910 as-tested price. Comparatively, the M8 seems like a horsepower-per-dollar bargain at an as-tested $167,245 for 617 ponies. The RS7 is our underdog, with 591 horses, but it's also the least expensive: Our Tango Red test car arrived nearly fully loaded for $137,540.
That there are even three choices of racy, sweptback quasi-sedans is astounding. It hints at some alternate universe where everyone lives on an Alpine mountain and commutes to an office at the top of another peak and between them is the Nürburgring Nordschleife.
Living in that fantasy world and missing from this test is the 620-hp Porsche Panamera Turbo S. While it would have fit the budget, power requirements, and lozenge shape of the segment, Porsche didn't want the Panamera on this fight card and wouldn't cough up a car.
Perhaps it was because we were motoring around in Southern California rather than yodeling through the Alps and terrorizing the 'Ring, but our collective enthusiasm for these pricey four-doors was lacking. "Why am I not more excited about these cars?" testing director Dave VanderWerp asked, poking dispiritedly at the decorative exhaust tips on the AMG. He got no reply from tech editor David Beard, who was busy researching which Jelly Belly flavor the Designo Brilliant Blue Magno Mercedes resembles (Jewel Blueberry, if you're wondering).
Then we drove them: The revelation came not on the straightaways but through miles of twisty canyon, up and down mountains. When we stopped at an overlook, the mood had changed. We were no longer ambivalent. Someone breathed, "Effing magic," an echo to the tick, tick of parked-when-hot exhaust. We had forgiven the droopy behinds and linguistic marketing gymnastics, completely entranced by the family-size four-doors with the hearts of backstreet brawlers.
3rd Place:
BMW M8 Competition Gran Coupe
Highs: Quick starts, quick stops, adolescently ferocious rear-wheel-drive setting.
Lows: The ability to find and amplify every road imperfection, steering that hates its job.
Verdict: An amazing car for escaping in a cloud of smoke, not so much for daily driving.
If this were a drag-racing competition, the M8, well, the M8 would still lose despite its ridiculously quick 2.7-second 60-mph time and 10.8-second quarter-mile. While those numbers would do a supercar proud, the GT63 is even quicker. And yet we're going to call the M8 the dragster of the group, because while the Benz and Audi can disable their all-wheel-drive systems to become rear-drivers, only the M8 will do a "Big Daddy" Don Garlits–style burnout. Though that feature might matter only to us and the fine folks at Tire Rack who are probably filling an order for $778 worth of replacement 285/35ZR-20 Michelin Pilot Sport 4S rear tires right now.
Judged solely by the testing equipment, the M8 wouldn't have finished last. Its all-out acceleration times beat the RS7's and were a mere tick behind the GT63's, and its 147-foot stop from 70 mph and 291-foot stop from 100 led the pack. The BMW's passing times and 5-to-60 acceleration beat the others', too, and it tied with the Audi for best as-tested fuel economy.
2nd Place:
Mercedes-AMG GT63 S
Highs: Steering, braking, and engine roar exactly like the sports car it's named after.
Lows: Rigid, clomping ride; passes the $200,000 mark.
Verdict: A grand tourer that's plenty grand, just not when it comes to touring.
Talk about a comeback kid. At the start of this test, the blue jellybean was nobody's favorite. All of these cars have largish rear ends, but the GT63 would benefit most from some Spanx. It's the loudest of the group at 70 mph; the only thing you can say about the excessive wind rush is that you're unlikely to notice it over the even more excessive tire noise. Like the BMW, the AMG is unyielding even in its most gentle suspension setting. "Perhaps the C on the mode dial stands not for Comfort but for Chiropractor," quipped one of the Daves.
In testing, the loud tires—wide Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2s, the most aggressive rubber here—earned the Merc points by holding on to the skidpad with 1.05 g's. The AMG punched a 2.6-second time to 60 and a 10.7-second quarter-mile with a 129-mph trap speed, knocking out the Audi and the BMW.
Of the three cars in this test, the $199,910 GT63 S—the most expensive by a large margin—offered the most amusing options and details. Well, no, actually those rear-drive burnouts in the M8 were the most amusing, but the AMG did have a foldout shopping crate and a cutout in the cargo hold to store it. Surprisingly, even for all that dough, ours didn't have the perfume atomizer that fills your car with Benz-designed scents, but we weren't bothered.
1st Place:
Audi RS7 Sportback
Highs: Serene ride, still so fast, massive cargo space.
Lows: The inability to brag about a sub-three-second 60-mph time, all the letters from readers who judge only on the numbers.
Verdict: A tamed monster that gives up just the slightest edge of excitement in favor of usability.
At the test track, the RS7 couldn't break the three-second barrier to 60 mph or dip into the 10s in the quarter-mile. But if moving 4806 pounds from a dead stop to freeway speed in 3.0 seconds isn't quick enough for you, we'd like to live where you do
The RS7 doesn't offer the manic attentiveness of the Benz or the caffeine-jag jitters of the BMW. Its ride, general demeanor, and automatic transmission are less edgy. Instead Audi lays on the luxury a little thicker. Not only are the 14-way leather seats the cushiest, but the ride is smoothest by a large margin. The combination of air springs and adaptive dampers erases the sins of paving crews like a medieval indulgence that actually works. All of this is great, except it also extends to the exhaust note; even with the $1000 sport exhaust, the RS7 was by far the quietest and least involving of the bunch.
The RS7 wins despite being the slowest to 60 mph and having the least grip. It strikes a just-right balance between luxury and sport
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