Road and Track Comparo of the Audi RS 4, BMW M3 Sedan, Lexus IS F and Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG
TurboSpyder submitted on 4/30/2008 Official Bell & Ross Timestamp: 3:26:07 AM
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The late, great Mark Donohue is credited with saying, "It will never have enough power until I can spin the wheels at the end of the straightaway in high gear.
" This response, to the Porsche engineers of the Can-Am-dominating 917-30, was tongue-in-cheek (the car's turbocharged flat-12 may have produced as much as 1400 bhp, depending on boldness with the boost control), but it's a sentiment that echoes through the engineering halls of Audi, BMW, Lexus and Mercedes-Benz when it comes to their production cars. "If 350 bhp is good, wouldn't it stand to reason that 450 bhp is better?" That's a foregone conclusion with us at R&T.
So here we have an incredible crop of normally aspirated aluminum-block 4-cam V-8 engines, ranging in displacement from 4.0 to 6.2 liters, with an average specific output of 90.2 bhp/liter and a redline average exceeding 7600 rpm! With a world-conquering power-to-weight ratio being more easily achieved by reducing the "weight" part, these manufacturers elected to cram these V-8s into some of the smaller 4-door bodyshells in their lineups. So with the shoehorn that is modern computer-aided design, these optimized air pumps were finessed into the engine bays of the Audi RS 4, BMW M3 Sedan, Lexus IS F and Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG — some fitting more easily than others.
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