A4q vs BMW 328i vs RS2

[quk@sievers.com (Phil Payne)]

In message <Marcel-0.99-0827204635-0b0bRe2@sparkg.wave.co.nz> Greg Spark writes:

> My friend has just bought an RS2 Avant which he says is astonishing. 
> Performance handling and braking are incredible. These cars were built in 
> very limited numbers by Porsche (anyone know how many?) ...

180.  We had one on the UK quattro Owners Club stand at Coy's at the beginning 
of August - it's owned by one of the directors of Audi (UK).  Going price in 
the UK is around GBP50,000 - $75,000.  I don't like the instruments - the white 
background and tiny font make them very fussy.

>> the superiority of the a4 chassis is nicely demonstrated by the success
>> of the a4 in the various touring car races.  organizers had to slap
>> additional weight handicaps on the a4 to stop it from running away with
>> the championship.

30kg.  Didn't work.  Biela clinched the drivers' championship yesterday.  Audi 
are around 36 points ahead of BMW in the constructors' championship.

The attention to detail on the race cars is incredible.  They pull 300+ bhp out 
of 2 litres without a turbo.  The front of the car is basically a huge air 
scoop, funneled into the engine.  The engine has a cross-flow head, with two 
injectors per cylinder.  The whole car looks very well made - there's nothing 
bodged or cobbled up about it. You get the feeling they could put it into 
production tomorrow.

Biela, incidentally, has a most curious driving position.  His feet are very 
high, perhaps four inches or so above the bottom of the seat.  The controls are 
superbly laid out - he can dial in the front and rear suspension stiffness from 
the driver's seat, and select one of around a dozen parameters to be shown in a 
large digital display right in front of the steering wheel.  The injector pairs 
run off separate pumps, and the driver can manually control the pumps 
separately.  The brakes seem to be six-pot, with separate circuits for the pot 
pairs on each wheel, i.e., three brake circuits, all going to each caliper.

--
 phil@sievers.com