A Former BMW Driver Reviews The Audi S5

This is how I start every morning.

I wake up excited, knowing what’s waiting for me outside. I grab the keys to my white Audi S5, leave my apartment, and enter a different world.

When you look at the S5, it looks back at you. It looks back at you in the same way one of your friends does when they know you’re about to do something crazy – and then nods in agreement. “I’m with you, man.”

The red interior is welcoming and enticing. A custom cocktail of luxury and sport. Plush, but crafted in a shape that holds you tightly. You and the S5 have just become one.

The S5 sparks to life with a collected confidence. Glad that the single push of a button has interrupted its quiet slumber. The needles on the dash, back-lit by a beautiful white hue, quickly spin back and forth along their gauges, before coming to rest at idle. The S5 tells you it’s waking up, and it’s ready for anything.

The shifter pulls itself into gear easily, almost as if it’s egging you on. The clutch is comfortable and smooth. The car glides you forward into motion with ease. The rumble from 355 horses harnessed within 8 cylinders of German engineering lay in wait. They are calm, but ready.

The car is primed for whatever you need it for. It is well-composed during city or town driving, with plenty of get-up-and-go through the entire powerband range, so you can minimize shifting.

Curvy roads, you say? The Audi is planted on the ground. I mean, planted. Its low, wide, heavy stance gives the S5 the feel that it has sprawled its arms across your entire lane and won’t be letting go. Simply put, the handling is amazing.

But, the highway is where the S5 truly feels at home.

I have owned many cars with brutally violent acceleration. The type of speed that gives you whiplash. The types of G-Forces that make you confident to put a hundred dollar bill on the dash and dare your passenger to be able to grab it while being flung back into their seat.

This is how the S5 feels in the lower gears, but higher up the S5 is a car that screams “momentum.” The confident acceleration rockets you forward with the expected refinement of a luxury car.

The S5 doesn’t move along the road, it chews it up. It consumes the asphalt.

When you drive an Audi S5, you feel as though the car is standing still, and your 325 ft. lbs. of torque injected into Audi’s Quattro system fusing it to the ground, is actually turning the earth below you.

It’s like a linebacker. Who does ballet. And is drinking champagne.

The Audi S5 mixes brutal power with class. It’s like a tiger in a tuxedo.

It’s like a gorilla walking the red carpet.

And, if you’re ever actually not driving the Audi S5, there are enough features, buttons, and gadgets to keep you busy for hours. The MMI (Multi-Media-Interface) system is a small bit more difficult to use than the iDrive in BMW, but I expect like anything, getting used to it will be fairly simple.

Just sitting still, the car commands respect. The giant front grill will make small children run the opposite direction from fear of being swallowed. The low, wide, sleek stance will make you feel a presence while on the road like never before.

And, people will try to race you. A lot. The good news is, you will win.

The Audi S5 means serious business, and is absolutely the right all-around car for people who do, too.

[twitter-follow screen_name=’JamesMSama’]