Now that the ALPINA B8 Gran Coupe is finally here, it’s time to take a look at how it compares to some of its rivals. While one might argue that its most common rival actually comes from its own parent brand, the BMW M8 Gran Coupe. However, intra-BMW competition aside, the B8’s biggest competitor is likely going to be the Audi RS7 Sportback.

Both cars are four-door German coupes, both are similar in size, have similar power, and similar performance. They also both lean more toward performance GT cars, rather than all out performance machines. The two biggest differences between the two are exclusivity; the ALPINA is far rarer; and the fact that the RS7 has a liftback tailgate. However, those are minor differences, so let’s get on with the comparison.

Choosing between the B8 Gran Coupe and the Audi RS7 is like choosing between which supermodel you’d like to take home. They’re both spectacularly gorgeous cars but, interestingly, they’re quite different as well.

Up front, the B8 Gran Coupe is far more subdued, with a refined, sophisticated look. Sure, it has large air intakes but they’re less aggressive than those found on the RS7 (they’re all real as well). The RS7’s aggressive grill, angular headlights, and sharp hood lines make it the much sportier looking car of the two. I’m actually having a hard time choosing between them but I think I have to hand it to the Audi, due to its hyper-slick LED headlights, and sportier look. But I can’t argue with anyone that would choose the classier ALPINA.

In profile, it’s another close call. The ALPINA B8 Gran Coupe is a bit lower, a bit sleeker and, again, a bit more sophisticated. The Audi RS7 Sportback has a liftback tailgate, so its roofline is a bit taller. It’s more practical but it’s not as slick looking. The B8’s overall silhouette is just a bit prettier and its stunning ALPINA wheels are far prettier than the overly garish wheels of the RS7. The Audi is a gorgeous car but if it does have a flaw, it’s with its slightly obnoxious wheels. So the B8 takes it.

Out back, it’s a again a choice of whether or not you like more subdued or more aggressive styling. The B8 features typical 8 Series taillights but it has a nice diffuser and fantastic quad exhausts that extend through the rear bumper. The Audi RS7’s rear lightbar is stunning and its oval exhausts are very aggressive looking. So it’s a tough call. I think the RS7 has to take it due to the sheer theater of the rear light bar. The active rear spoiler is cool, too.

This is one of those comparisons that, even though the Audi technically won, two-to-one, I have hard time actually crowning it the winner. The ALPINA B8 Gran Coupe is more than the sum of its styling parts, as it exudes a sort of refined aggression and exclusivity that the admittedly stunning RS7 can’t match. I still have to hand the win to the Audi, being that it won two of the three sections, but in reality the decision between the two would be far more difficult. I love both for different reasons and wouldn’t blame anyone for choosing either one over the other.

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If you’re in the market for a big, fast, four-door coupe, you’re spoiled for choice at the moment. There are three great choices in that segment, all from premium German automakers, all with the performance to shred supercars from just a few years ago; the BMW M8 Gran Coupe, Audi RS7 Sportback and Mercedes-AMG GT63 S. All three cars have swoopy four-door bodies, monster V8 engines, and incredibly luxurious cabins. But which one is best?

In this new comparison test from Car and Driver, the three aforementioned cars go head-to-head-to-head to find out and the results are shocking, to be honest.

The spec sheets for all three cars are relatively similar. They all have big twin-turbocharged V8s making around 600 horsepower. The Audi RS7 is the least powerful, with its 4.0 liter V8 making 591 horsepower and 590 lb-ft. While the BMW M8 is next, with a 4.4 liter twin-turbo V8 making 617 horsepower and 553 lb-ft. That leaves the AMG with the most grunt, with a 4.0 liter V8, 630 horsepower, and 664 lb-ft. Both the BMW and Audi have eight-speed automatic transmissions, while the AMG uses a nine-speed unit. All three cars have all-wheel drive.

Their performance figures played out as you’d expect; the AMG was the fastest, the BMW M8 was next, leaving the Audi RS7 dead last. Still, the Audi was the slowest with a 0-60 mph time of 3.0 seconds flat, trailing the BMW M8 (2.8 seconds) and the AMG (2.6 seconds) by only a few tenths. When the slowest car in the test hits 60 mph in 3.0 seconds, you’re in some seriously fast company.

On the road, however, they all behaved very differently. The BMW M8 was the big bruiser of the test, with incredible straight line speed and the greatest willingness to smoke its rear tires to pieces. While the Mercedes-AMG was the driver’s car of the bunch, thanks to its superior steering and handling, along with its raucous V8 rumble. Leaving the Audi RS7 to split the difference between the two. So which one was best? Check out C&D’s article to find out.

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The Audi RS7 Sportback is a seriously quick car. Its 4.0 liter twin-turbo V8 makes 591 horsepower and 590 lb-ft of torque, which by our maths is 600 for both. That helps it get from 0-60 mph in the mid-three-second range, while also being able to shuttle five adults and some luggage. In other words, no one has ever driven the RS7 and thought “it’s good but it needs more power…”

However, more power is exactly what this example got, from Power Division, a tuning team inside Italian tuning company Magic Motorsport. Thanks to two LM990 Ladermanufaktur hybrid turbos, a custom Power Division intercooler, MG Motorsport exhaust with Power Division downpipe, and obviously an engine tune, this Audi RS7 Sportback makes a mega 1,050 horsepower and 885 lb-ft (1,200 Nm) of torque.

In this new video from Auditography, we get to see just how fast it is. According to the video, this tuned Audi RS7 Sportback can get from 0-62 mph (100 km/h) in a ridiculous 2.48 seconds. That’s Porsche Taycan Turbo S fast. What’s even crazier is that it can get from 62-124 mph (100-200 km/h) in just 4.63 seconds. Total that up and this RS7 can reach 124 mph in a 7.11 seconds. For context, that’s faster than my B6 Audi A4 can reach 60 mph.

While the car in the video sounds good, it doesn’t sound great. That’s not a knock on either the car or the tune, just the nature of heavily turbocharged engines. They never sound great, with two big turbos muting the exhaust gasses. There are also a ton of tuned-in pops and bangs on the exhaust which, if you know me, I don’t think sound very good. That’s just me, though.

You don’t get this sort of tune for the exhaust noise, though. You get it because you want to have the fastest Audi RS7 Sportback in the world. Can this very car make such a claim? I can’t be certain, there’s no way of knowing if there’s actually a faster car out there, or if this one can even back up its claimed times, without getting some officially timed runs at a drag strip. However, with 1,050 horsepower, it’s bound to be bonkers fast either way.

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While the Audi e-tron GT has sort off overshadowed it a bit, the Audi RS7 Sportback is still one of the best looking Audis on the road. Of all the German four-door coupes; the RS7, BMW 8 Series Gran Coupe, and Mercedes-Benz CLS-Class; the RS7 is still the best looking one. When you lower it and put it on killer Vossen 3-piece EVO 6T wheels, it’s flat-out gorgeous.

In this new video from Vossen, you get to see exactly that. These 22″ three-piece Vossens look perfect on the Audi RS7 Sportback and really send the design over the top. As pretty as the RS7 is, its biggest flaw is its wheel designs; none of them are really any good. They’re all sort of just generic performance car wheels. So slap some Vossen 3-piece EVO 6T wheels on it and the whole car’s design elevates and can be truly appreciated.

The black wheels also perfectly contrast the Nardo Grey Audi RS7 Sportback. The lowered suspension helps, too. It allows the Vossen wheels to really fill out the big wheel arches, without getting too low and being impossible to drive in the real world. Vossen doesn’t say what suspension it’s running but it looks great.

We wouldn’t be surprised if it still rides well, too. Even the standard Audi RS7 Sportback comes with massive wheels this size and it rides beautifully. So we would fully expect the RS7 to still ride well, even on lowered suspension and big wheels.

Powering the Audi RS7 Sportback is a 4.0 liter twin-turbo V8 that makes 591 horsepower and 590 lb-ft of torque. It gets from 0-60 mph in the low three-second range and it’s good for 155 mph. So it has the bite to match the killer bark. Sweetening the deal even further is the fact that the RS7 is also surprisingly practical, with a liftback tailgate. So the car you see in this video is a triple-threat; it looks awesome, has supercar performance, and family car practicality. What more could anyone want?

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As good as the new Audi RS7 looks, the first-gen car is still an absolute stunner. To some, it might even be better looking, due to its more curvaceous looks and prettier front end. However, it flat-out can’t compare to the new car for performance, as the new car is an absolute monster. In this new video from AutoTopNL, we get to see what the first-gen RS7 sounds like with an engine upgrade and Akrapovic exhaust.

According to the video description, this Audi RS7 has an Audi “S8 Plus engine replacement”. That isn’t very specific but I’m pretty sure the Audi S8 Plus used a tuned version of the same 4.0 liter twin-turbo V8 that powered the first-gen RS7. So I think it’s safe to assume that rather than replace the engine with an S8 Plus’, it just uses the same state of tune as the S8. Though, maybe someone was crazy enough to replace the engine from an RS7 with an S8 Plus’ engine. Doubtful but maybe.

With that out of the way, this Audi RS7 makes 605 horsepower, as did the Audi S8 Plus, and features an Akrapovic exhaust, and catless downpipes. So it’s flipping loud. Even from inside the typically quiet cabin of the RS7, it’s seriously loud. Serious speed accompanies that noise, too. It’s not absurd, scare-the-life-out-of-you fast, as it makes as much power as a stock S8 Plus, but that still means it has 605 horsepower, so it’s still properly fast.

Funnily enough, the car also features a custom steering wheel, with a screen and shift lights in the upper part of the rim. That steering wheel also comes with new, seemingly carbon fiber, shift paddles but they don’t seem to work in the video.

The key to this car is the noise. Audi’s 4.0 liter twin-turbo V8 is loud on its own but fitting it with an Akrapovic exhaust and catless downpipe makes it sound like artillery fire.

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The Audi RS7 holds a unique position in the super sedan segment. Not only is it the least powerful of the bunch (the fact that a 591 horsepower car is the least power is hilariously fantastic) but it’s also the only one that has a proper hatchback. Because of that, it’s typically considered the more comfortable, practical, and sensible choice in the segment. So can it take on two of its rivals that are designed to be a bit more dynamic and a bit more brutal?

In this new three-way comparison test from Car and Driver, we get to take a look at the Audi RS7, the BMW M5 Competition, and the all-new Cadillac CT5-V Blackwing. The BMW M5 is a well-known adversary for the RS7, as the two have gone head-to-head in several comparisons since their releases. However, the Caddy is all-new and a bit of a wild car in this test.

Both Germans are pretty similar on the spec sheet. Both use similarly sized twin-turbo V8 engines; a 4.0 liter for the Audi and a 4.4 liter for the BMW; and both make around the same power. The Audi RS7 makes 591 horsepower and 590 lb-ft of torque, while the BMW M5 Competition makes 617 horsepower and 553 lb-ft of torque. Both cars use eight-speed automatic ZF-sourced transmissions and all-wheel drive.

The Cadillac, on the other hand, is very different. It uses a 6.2 liter supercharged V8 to make 668 horsepower and 659 lb-ft of torque. That atom bomb-power is sent through a GM-sourced ten-speed automatic to just the rear wheels. So it’s a proper psychopath.

We won’t spoil the results for you, as it’s a three-way comparo that you should most definitely read. However, the Audi held its own remarkably well, considering it’s the least powerful and slowest car in the test. Its great looks, fantastic interior, and comfortable ride actually earned it a ton of praise from the C&D team, whereas those qualities are typically seen as flaws when compared to more driver-oriented cars. But was the RS7 good enough to win? Check it out.

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When it comes to cars that can do it all, few are better than the Audi A7. It’s practical, luxurious, gorgeous, and can be extremely fast if we’re talking about the RS7. Save for going off road, the sleek Sportback from Ingolstadt ticks just about all the right boxes, but it’s the heavy dose of performance that entices enthusiasts.

A new video recorded on the Autobahn shows a first-generation RS7 stretching its legs on an unrestricted section of Germany’s glorious highway. Bear in mind this is no ordinary RS7 as we’re dealing with the beefier Performance version launched in late 2015 with an uprated engine. The twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8 was massaged by engineers carrying shirts with Four Rings to 605 horsepower and 516 pound-feet (700 Newton-meters) of torque. They even gave it an overboost function, unlocking a mountain-moving 553 lb-ft (750 Nm) for a few seconds.

Putting those numbers to the test, YouTuber AutoTopNL gave the C7-generation RS7 Performance the proverbial beans by pushing the lightly modified Sportback all the way up to 193 mph (311 km/h). “Lightly modified” because the stock exhaust is gone, replaced by an Akrapovic setup providing a more aggressive soundtrack that perfectly suits the V8.

There’s more to the RS7 than the impressively high velocity it can achieve as getting there is just as exciting. The sprint to 62 mph (100 km/h) from a standstill took merely 3.35 seconds, which is a lot better than the 3.7-second time announced by Audi when the Performance version came out some six years ago.

Let’s keep in mind the RS7 is quite the luxobarge in terms of size and weight, tipping the scales at around two metric tons. It proves that while the internal combustion engine is gradually being phased out in favor of electric vehicles, it’s not going out without a proverbial bang.

It is a certainty that performance will get better with EVs, but we will definitely miss the raw engine note of a V8. That day is still in the distant future as RS models equipped with combustion engines still have a few good years left before Audi will pull the plug on its high-performance ICE offerings.

Source: AutoTopNL / YouTube

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It’s hard to not love the Audi RS7 Sportback. How do you not love a 600-horsepower super sedan with a hatchback trunk and supermodel looks? I tested the RS7 last year but, unfortunately, it snowed 90 percent of the time I had it, so I was barely able to scratch the surface of its potential. However, in this new video from The Smoking Tire, we get to see what it’s like in sunny Los Angeles, on some twisty canyon roads.

Both hosts drive the car; Matt Farah and Zach Klapman; and both seem genuinely impressed with the RS7, though there’s a caveat. Don’t expect the Audi RS7 Sportback to take down the BMW M5 or Mercedes-AMG E63, in terms of sporty handling. While the RS7 is sporty, packs a ton of performance, and more capable than a nearly 5,000 lb sedan should be, flat-out canyon carving is not its primary objective.

Instead, the Audi RS7 is designed to be used as a daily driver that’s both comfortable, smooth, and brutally fast. Rather than a proper super sedan, it’s more of a high-performance, four-door GT car. It’s built to eat up hundreds of miles, at 120 mph, in comfort and style. And if it so happens to come upon a twisty road, you can still have some fun in it.

Under the hood is a 4.0 liter twin-turbo V8 with 591 horsepower and 590 lb-ft of torque. With that, it can hit 60 mph in the low three-second range and run the quarter-mile in 11.3 seconds. That’s blisteringly fast for such a heavy car with a practical hatchback trunk. And that’s sort of the whole point of the car — duality.

At the end of the video, Farah says he took a trip with his wife and his parents; four adults and all of their luggage; and not only was it comfortable and spacious enough but it was also fast and fun. They ate up tons of miles in it and really enjoyed the RS7. So if you’re looking for a four-door GT car, you can’t go wrong in an Audi RS7 Sportback.

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Here are the specs for the bone-stock Audi RS7 Sportback (US model) — 4.0 liter twin-turbo V8, 591 horsepower, 590 lb-ft of torque, and 0-60 mph in 3.5 seconds. Impressive, right? You probably wouldn’t need any more, correct? Well how about a lot more? This tuned Audi RS7 makes 950 horsepower and 885 lb-ft (1,200 Nm) of torque. Holy effing hell.

In this new video from AutoTopNL, you get to watch a POV drive video of that very Audi RS7 Sportback, with all of its insane power. According to the specs provided, it can reach 60 mph in 2.9 seconds and hit a top speed of 330 km/h (205 mph). The internet has jaded many enthusiasts into thinking many high-powered cars can reach 200 mph but that’s not the case. Not only is 200 mph typically difficult to achieve, it often doesn’t feel safe doing so. And yet this Audi RS7 seems to do it so easily.

The video shows off an Autobahn run, to reach its top speed. And while it does almost reach that 205 mph number in this video exactly, that’s not actually what’s impressive. Instead, what’s impressive is how quickly it gets there. The monstrous 950 horsepower twin-turbo V8 makes the RS7 pull hard, even well past 155 mph. It’s flat-out insane. What’s interesting about this RS7 is that, while blistering off the line, it’s not as fast as some of its rivals. AutoTopNL’s independent timing gear clocked a 2.96 second 0-60 mph time and 10.40 seconds. That’s seriously fast but cars like the BMW M5 CS are faster from the factory.

However, get it up to speed though and it pulls like freight train. It just seemingly never relents, continuously launching itself toward the horizon. While it never reaches that claimed top speed of 205 mph (330 km/h), it gets close enough not make a difference, hitting 200 mph exactly (321 km/h). Even after 300 km/h, it just keeps pulling and pulling. If the driver didn’t decided to back off, I have no doubt it would have nailed its claimed top speed, maybe even beat it. What an insane machine.

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It’s hard to argue with the overall package that most Audis present. Most Audis aren’t the absolute best driver’s cars in their segments, nor the most luxurious. However, they’re often well-rounded cars that drive well, offer great performance, impressive luxury, and great looks. Which is why nine different Audi models made Car and Driver’s Editor’s Choice list for 2022.

Most of the Audi models that made the list were relatively normal cars, too. It wasn’t all high-performance models or uber-expensive models. Even normal “A” cars made the list, including the Audi A3, which is the cheapest Audi on sale. Admittedly, each category was given more than one winner, so it’s not as if Audi swept the awards list. Still, nine placements shows off the breadth of ability of Audi’s current lineup.

Here’s the full list of Audi’s that made C&D’s list.

• Audi A3 — Entry-Luxury Compact Car
• Audi S3 — Entry-Luxury Compact Car
• Audi A5 Sportback — Entry-Luxury Car
• Audi A6 — Mid-Size Luxury Car
• Audi A6 Allroad — Luxury Station Wagon
• Audi A7 —  Mid-Size Luxury Car
• Audi A8 — Full-Size Luxury Car
• Audi RS6 Avant — Luxury Station Wagon
• Audi RS7 Sportback — Premium Sports Sedan

We’re not surprised cars like the Audi RS6 Avant made the list, as it’s a thrilling 600 horsepower wagon. Nor are we surprised that the RS7 Sportback made the list, as how many super sedans are better? Not many. However, cars like the Audi A5 Sportback, which is quite old at this point, and the A6 Allroad both surprised and delighted us. It’s also nice to the Audi A8 getting some love, being that it gets relatively little love on the sales sheet, when compared to its rivals from Mercedes-Benz and BMW.

The car that we’re most happy to see, though, is the Audi A3. It proves that you can have an enjoyable, premium sedan on a decent budget and that makes us happy to see.

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