Audi RS7 Sportback vs. BMW M6 Gran Coupé vs. Jaguar
XFR-S vs. Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG S ... and the Aston Martin Rapide S
The super saloon traces its lineage back to the first Q
cars. Named after the World War Two Q ships that were surreptitiously
well-armed fishing boats luring enemy submarines expecting easy pickings into a
withering hail of gunfire, a Q car was similarly deceiving - a performance
engine wrapped in an unassuming shell that was as capable of comfortable
cruising as it was of blowing unsuspecting rivals into the weeds.
The primordial ooze from which the Q originally emerged has
become an alphabet soup of instantly associative supersaloon acronyms, from
Merc’s AMG to Audi and Jaguar’s takes on RS, BMW’s M and Aston Martin’s simple
S suffix. Now, the super saloon has spawned a new breed of four-door
performance car - the four-door coupé.
Regardless of their launch dates, this clutch of executive
expresses represents an evolutionary time line that spans from the largely
Q-rooted AMG S and Jaguar’s recently unleashed XFR-S to the lither, more
sportscar packaged likes of the Audi RS7 and BMW M6 GC, and beyond to the
super-niche Aston Martin Rapide S.
Audi RS7 Sportback
Ultimately, it’s the balance of dynamic thrills,
neck-snapping performance and civility that defines a super saloon, but in
which epoch does this ideal lie?
With its riot of vents and a lofty dorsal fin of a rear
spoiler, not to mention its brazen French Racing Blue casing, the Jaguar XFR-S
looks the most atavistic of the gathered cars - a notion enforced by the feral
rasping snort from its exhaust as the V8 is woken from its slumber.
With the wick turned up on Jaguar’s explosive supercharged
5,0-liter and a responsive eight- speed transmission with which it meshes well,
there’s plenty of accessible performance on offer for those with the requisite
skill to push the big cat.
There’s that terrific low-end punch and linear power
delivery expected of a supercharged powerplant, but a sharp throttle makes the
line between traction and sideways action a fine one. This tail-happiness in
tight corners, although a treat to watch, meant that the XFR-S posted the
slowest lap time on the track of the five super saloons.
Audi RS7
Sportback’s interior
Audi RS7 Sportback’s specs
·
Output: 412 kW / 700 N.m
·
0-100 km/h: 3,84 secs
·
Top speed: 250 km/h
·
Laptime: 1:15,8
·
Max speed: 167 km/h
The XF-R’s entertaining liveliness when driven in anger is
tempered with nervousness that makes it a demanding car to pilot on long,
twisty roads. For this reason, most of the testers felt the need to back off
and tread carefully when we drove head-on into a summer storm on our
penultimate back-road drive in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands.
It may be wilder, 30% stiffer and more aggressively sprung
than the R upon which it’s based, but the XFR-S’s ride is supple and its fluid
demeanor means that, as one tester so brilliantly stated, makes it feel as
though it breathes with the road surface instead of trying to pummel it into
submission.
