{"id":1961556,"date":"2026-05-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1961556"},"modified":"2026-05-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T21:00:00","slug":"world-exclusive-new-audi-rs5-avant-vs-bmw-m3-cs-touring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1961556","title":{"rendered":"World exclusive: new Audi RS5 Avant vs BMW M3 CS Touring"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What was going through the heads of Audi\u2019s engineers back in the winter of 2022, when BMW suddenly invented the fast estate car? The hype around the first M3 Touring was fanatical. Audi\u2019s three-decade heritage of RS2, RS4s and RS6s was eclipsed overnight.<\/p>\n

Did they sneer with quiet contentment knowing their next contender would blow the BMW\u2019s horsepower into the weeds, and be blessed with a handling ace in the hole like no Audi before?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Or did they toss and turn and gulp and sweat, aware their challenger’s hybrid handicap left its boot pokier than the car it would replace, let alone the vast, unimpeded M3\u2019s? And that despite having almost 100 horsepower in hand, the Audi would weigh in over half a tonne heavier \u2013 and end up slower?<\/p>\n

Photography: Alex Tapley<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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RS vs M is an ancient (one-sided) rivalry, but these two are only temporary enemies. The Audi is all new. This BMW will be retired within a year, superseded by two M3s \u2013 one hybrid, one entirely electric. Wonder what\u2019s going through the M Division\u2019s pointiest heads right now?<\/p>\n

Audi partners will whinge this isn\u2019t a fair fight. The M3 that\u2019s brought me to Austria\u2019s endlessly diverse, relentlessly challenging Nockalmstra\u00dfe is the stripped, ripped CS: a 15kg lighter final edition with five meaningless seconds shaved from its N\u00fcrburgring lap time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In return for the ‘come on then’ carbon splitter, the ‘say that to my face mate’ bloodied nostrils and the ‘right, outside now’ half-painted bonnet, BMW wants \u00a3126,000. That\u2019s a towering \u00a335,000 more than where the RS5 Avant starts. But the Touring tips the scales back in its favour by being (like anyone who\u2019s getting on a bit) wiser and less tech-savvy.<\/p>\n

Because this M3 was being readied a decade ago, it comes from that innocent, simpler time when fast cars didn\u2019t have to be hybrids. The M3 CS buries a mighty 3.0-litre straight-six behind its gothic gargoyle face, upped in this last hurrah to 543bhp and 479lb ft. That\u2019s all it can call upon to drive all four wheels, or just the rear half if you\u2019re feeling brave and testosterone-y.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Audi was dreamt up in the post-Greta, post-Covid, post-trillion-dollar-Tesla-share-price era when car + electricity = default. So, like the RS4 it replaces (let\u2019s not get bogged down in Audi doing a dirty protest over its logical badging) there\u2019s a twin-turbo 2.9-litre V6 dangling way out over the front axle, squeezed in so tightly the front grille\u2019s coming apart at the seams.<\/p>\n

That V6 has been boosted by almost 60bhp, but 503bhp and 443lb ft gives the M3 little to worry about until the 174bhp e-motor nestled deep inside Audi\u2019s gearbox dropkicks it past on paper. The result is a junior estate car with 630bhp and 608lb ft. More than a V8 RS6. There are nuclear reactor-fuelled aircraft carriers with less grunt. No wonder the RS5\u2019s muscles bulge out of its wheelarches and ripple around its backside. What a fabulous looking car, all stance and coiled rage, dripping with ‘are you talking to me sunshine?’ swagger. It glowers at the M3, wondering how on Earth it has possibly ended up slower.<\/p>\n

Yes, slower. By the time the BMW scorches from 0-62mph in\u00a03.5 seconds, the vastly more powerful Audi will be puffing along doing 57 and a half. You don\u2019t get something for nothing, and what Audi\u2019s swept under the boot carpet is a 520kg secret.<\/p>\n

You notice something\u2019s afoot when you open the back. The BMW\u2019s genius split tailgate with separately hinged window greets you with 500 keen-to-help litres, scalloped wells behind the wheelarches, hidden cellars beneath the floor and a clever quartet of metal strips which make sliding goods inside easy. Rubber inserts inflate after you set off to stop your stuff sliding about. The CS Touring truly epitomises the German car industry at its most gloriously illogical. All common sense, and yet a certifiable lunatic.<\/p>\n

The Audi offers\u2026 none of these things. Its boot is narrower, slopier, and the floor\u2019s got the hump, because just like its nose is crammed full of engine, its backside is stuffed with batteries. A battery chunky enough to power not one but four<\/em> Citroen Amis. It musters a 51-mile electric range, but that high-voltage spark ignites a bonfire of unintended consequences.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Besides a mere 361 litres of boot, (the Audi manages 1,302 litres to the BMW\u2019s 1,510 when the seats are dropped not-quite-flat), the bloat nullifies the Audi\u2019s on-paper advantages. Even with the instant wallop of electric torque, the BMW just feels<\/em> like the faster car. Less responsive, sure \u2013 the RS5 can mug the M3 if it\u2019s caught off-boost \u2013 but in a street fight out of a second-gear corner, the grizzly-faced, brightly-suited Joker gleefully steals away from the moody Dark Knight, cackling a sharp, metallic rasp to its pursuer\u2019s distant, muted thrum.<\/p>\n

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\"RS5<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The M3\u2019s gearshifts are much crisper as it only has to juggle one power source, while the RS5 mediates combustion and volts, harvests and deploys, grabs a notebook and pocket calculator, does maths, and forgets about the downchange I\u2019ve requested.<\/p>\n

Audi\u2019s also had to fit the sort of brakes normally used to halt intercity trains. But because it\u2019s busy funnelling energy back into the battery, the pedal feel can\u2019t match the simpler, single-purpose BMW\u2019s. Audi\u2019s thrown rear-wheel steering at the problem to inject cartoonish agility. And an extra 5bhp motor to excite the rear diff. This vicious circle spins around and around until you get a 2,370kg heffa. Load up the family and whatever you can post into the boot and it\u2019s weightier than a V8 AMG G-Wagen. Sorry, but how is this progress?<\/p>\n

Like I said, not a fair fight. Until you change the rules, and the BMW is helpless against the Audi\u2019s versatility. Because it can whoosh about in electrified silence, your neighbours won\u2019t complain when you arrive home late at night doing whatever it is Audi owners are doing out late at night. No-one with a boomy titanium exhaust-tipped M3 CS is having an affair.<\/p>\n

If you dutifully charge the Avant up for two and a half hours, and you\u2019re religiously careful with the pathetic 48-litre tank, it\u2019ll average double, maybe triple what the old RS4 gave you to the gallon. If you can swing the RS5 as a company car, it\u2019ll set you back around \u00a32,000 in BiK tax. Try that with the CS and the government trousers \u00a315,000.<\/p>\n

The Audi is also a charming daily driver. There\u2019s more soundproofing, less road rumble, and you won\u2019t need the fire brigade on speed-dial to winch yourself in and out of its high-set but squidgy chairs. The M3 driver languishes on the deck in perforated sadism thrones which are so supportive you can\u2019t clamber between the bolster and grotesquely thick steering wheel without a stick of butter and the jaws of life.<\/p>\n

The CS makes life needlessly difficult inside. Thoughtful though it is of BMW to leave holes in the chairs to slot your B&Q timber through, anything else you lob inside is going to scratch your precious carbon seat backs. Deleting the armrest saves 0.003 grammes and means there\u2019s nowhere to hide your wallet or keys, so you\u2019re getting broken into. Luckily the thief will be easily apprehended because it\u2019s impossible to exit without triggering a hernia.<\/p>\n

Sadly gone are the days when the Bank of England studied Audi interiors for tips on how to make its puny vaults tougher. These days it\u2019s a choppy ocean of lazy piano black trim and screen overkill. But you can at least read the instruments more easily than the BMW\u2019s Picasso hieroglyphs. The steering wheel isn\u2019t made of a swimming pool noodle, and although the BOOST and RS buttons aren\u2019t as intuitive as the M Division\u2019s M1 and M2 shortcuts to your favourite settings, there is at least somewhere to put your elbow.<\/p>\n

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\"RS5<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Faint praise, but the Audi is also better at going slowly. It doesn\u2019t strain at the leash like the M3. Its suspension verges on plush when I descend from the exquisitely smooth roads in the Styrian peaks and go snouting about the foothills on rougher, British-relevant lanes. The CS is the best-riding current M3 thanks to its outstanding wheel and body control and expensive-feeling tautness, but if your school run involves speed bumps, potholes or cattle grids, you\u2019ll want to be in the Audi.<\/p>\n

And despite the flab, the complication, and the constant thud, thwack, BANG<\/em> of the charging cable self-destructing as it flops about the boot, the RS5\u2019s electric avenue isn\u2019t a cynical tax-dodging dead-end. It\u2019s cured Audi of its oldest illness: terminal understeer.<\/p>\n

Trying to explain the ins and outs of how a tiny motor somewhere in the differential can create a 1,500lb ft offset in torque between each rear wheel would take longer than trying to find reason in the Audi\u2019s eight (yes, eight) choices of LED running light graphics. So let\u2019s concentrate on how it feels<\/em>.<\/p>\n

All seems normal. You turn in. The steering lacks the smidgen of feel the BMW telegraphs, but the Audi hurls itself in regardless because its forklift truck rear-steer and enormous tyres can momentarily cheat physics. Then you apply throttle. Not in a steady, mediated squeeze but an instant gratification stamp. Historically, the front tyres of the Audi would skitter across the road, yelping in pain as the BMW yee-haas into the distance. But not in the new RS5. The hybrid system isn\u2019t just used for speed here. It\u2019s for sideways.<\/p>\n

Booting power at the helpless outside rear wheel, the Audi lurches into great gobs of yobbish oversteer, waggling its inside front wheel in mid-air, getting crossed-up while painting lurid black lines up the immaculate alpine roads. The BMW is beautifully balanced for hooning using classical drifting techniques passed down through the generations, but the Audi responds to brute force and algorithms. It\u2019s more binary, but as it bucks and writhes and shimmies under the immense forces of its own making, it pulls more traction from the surface than the M3. Result? A tyre-pummelling mix of skids and G-force. And at long, long last, the most entertaining Audi driver\u2019s car since the original R8.<\/p>\n

The BMW can be more cars in one though. If you want a rear-bias-max-attack mode, it has Defcon \u20184WD Sport\u2019 If you tire of marmalising the rear tyres as you ratchet down the ten-stage traction control, it\u2019ll behave itself impeccably in the bog-standard \u20184WD\u2019 setting.<\/p>\n

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\"RS5<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It just doesn\u2019t do weaknesses, the M3 Touring. CS or not, its hype is truly deserved. So it has to win this showdown: it\u2019s more natural to drive than the at-times forced Audi, and besides being a better sports car, it\u2019s also a superior estate.<\/p>\n

But the RS5 Avant is by no means disgraced. It\u2019s the most exciting wagon Audi has built for 20 years, and BMW should fear it. When the M3 regenerates once more, it\u2019ll return to us electrified, heavier, shorn of buttons, maybe with a smaller boot. And the RS5 Avant will be lying in wait, just as Audi\u2019s boffins had planned all along.<\/p>\n

Audi RS5 Avant performance Vorsprung<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Price<\/strong>: \u00a3109,385
Engine<\/strong>: 2,894cc twin-turbo V6 + e-motor, 630bhp, 608lb ft
Transmission<\/strong>: 8spd auto, AWD
Performance<\/strong>: 0-62mph in 3.6sec, 177mph
Economy<\/strong>: 72.4mpg, 89g\/km CO2
Weight<\/strong>: 2,370kg<\/p>\n

BMW M3 CS Touring<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Price<\/strong>: \u00a3120,600
Engine<\/strong>: 2,996cc twin-turbo 6cyl, 543bhp, 479lb ft
Transmission<\/strong>: 8spd auto, AWD
Performance<\/strong>: 0-62mph in 3.5sec, 186mph
Economy<\/strong>: 26.9mpg, 238g\/km CO2
Weight<\/strong>: 1,850kg<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What was going through the heads of Audi\u2019s engineers back in the winter of 2022, when BMW suddenly invented the fast estate car? The hype around the first M3 Touring was fanatical. Audi\u2019s three-decade heritage of RS2, RS4s and RS6s was eclipsed overnight. Did they sneer with quiet contentment knowing their next contender would blow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-1961556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1961556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1961556\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1961556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1961556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1961556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}