Aston Martin Vantage vs Audi RS5

What's the difference?

It’s either a comfortable race car or a bonkers grand tourer, but it’s that best-of-both worlds positioning that makes this new Vantage so appealing. Think of it as like a supercar for proper grown-ups, and one you don’t need to grunt and groan to extract yourself from.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

Good looking, good to drive, and good to simply sit in, the Audi RS5 range ticks plenty of premium boxes. Whether you can live with the practicality pitfalls of the Coupe is up to you, but if you can't, might I suggest taking a wander over to our RS4 Avant review?

Ok, so the first thing you notice is this massive grille, which I now know is exactly 38 per cent bigger than before. That’s mostly for cooling, sucking in great lung-fulls of air – and any stray pets unlucky enough to wander into its path, I’d imagine — to keep that engine humming.

That air has to go somewhere, and the new bonnet vents complete the engine-cooling.picture.

Then there are 21-inch alloys are wrapped in performance rubber, and I love the swollen haunches at the rear tyres, giving the Vantage a mean and menacing vibe. At the rear, a very new and very loud quad-exhaust completes the picture.

In the cabin you'll find nothing in the way of hand-me-down Mercedes switchgear, which makes for change. This is all Aston Martin, and actually it all feels really nice.

The twin-screen setup looks tech-savvy and premium, the materials are all nicer than you'd find in something more track-obsessed, and even the optional race seats managed to be both snug-fitting and comfortable.

I defy anyone to describe the RS5, and especially the Coupe, as anything but stunning. Seriously, the near perfect proportions and swept-back styling make it look fast even when it's parked. 

Up front, there's a new-look black-mesh grille that's been given a 3D effect, like it juts out over the road in front it, while the thing headlights have been carved back into the body work like they're been windswept under hard acceleration.

The 20-inch darkened alloys fill the arches, too, with a sharp body crease that runs from the front headlight all the way back to the bulging shoulder lines above the rear tyres accentuating the curves.

Inside, the RS5 is a sea of black Nappa leather and sporty touches, and we particularly like the chunky, flat-bottomed steering wheel, which both looks - and feels - great.

You’ll be shocked to hear that Aston Martin didn’t dedicate too much of its limited track time to extolling the practicality perks of its new Vantage, mostly because there simply aren’t that many of them.

But the most obvious one, I think, is that most of the people in the market for a $400k-plus vehicle in this category are likely to be, well, of a certain vintage, and it’s for these people that the more traditional layout of the Vantage will no doubt appeal.

See, the engine is up front, and the doors open in the usual fashion, making getting in and out of the cabin easy, and free of the human-origami antics sometimes required to climb in and out of a scissor-door supercar.

But there have been practical improvements made to performance here, too. There’s 30 per cent more power, 15 per cent more torque, new cooling, better aerodynamics, retuned suspension and anti-roll tech, new brake booster tuning, improvements to the ESP system, more body stiffness. And it goes on.

We only tested the Coupe, and I can tell you that the practicality perks on offer largely depend on where you're sitting.

Up front, you're spoiled for room in the two-door Coupe, with the two spacious seats separated by a sizeable centre console that's also home to two cupholders and a variety of cubbies, with extra bottle storage in each of the front doors. 

The back seat, though, is a little, or a lot, tighter, with come acrobatics required to even climb into it, given the Coupe only has two doors. The Sportback offers two more doors, which will surely make the process a little easier. 

The Coupe measures 4723mm in length, 1866mm in width and 1372mm in height, and will deliver a decent 410 litres in luggage space in the boot. The Sportback measures in at 4783mm, 1866mm and 1399mm, and boosts your luggage space to 465 litres.

Either vehicle has your tech needs sorted, with an abundance of USB and power outlets serving both front and backseat riders.

It's available as a Coupe or a Sportback, but either way, the RS5 commands a $150,900 asking price. And that's not chump change, but Audi's performance model does come with a lot of bang for those bucks.

We'll get to the engine and safety stuff in a moment, but in terms of fruit, you'll find 20-inch alloys outside, as well sportier RS body styling, sport brakes, Matrix LED headlights, keyless entry and push-button start and heated mirrors, a sunroof and privacy glass. Inside, there's Nappa leather seats (heated in the front), illuminated door sills, stainless steel pedals and ambient interior lighting.

The tech stuff is handled by a new 10.1-inch central touchscreen that gets both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, as well as Audi's Virtual Cockpit, which replaces the dials in the driver's binnacle with a digital screen. There's also wireless phone charging, and a killer 19-speaker Bang and Olufsen sound system.

The 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 is still borrowed from Mercedes-AMG, but this is the new-generation unit, making 489kW and 800Nm. It gets modified cylinder heads and bigger turbos, helping generate the extra grunt.

That’s fed through an eight-speed ZF automatic and channeled through to the rear tyres. The race to 100km/h? That 3.5 seconds. Meanwhile, the flying top speed is around 325km/h.

Its a terrific engine, this - a twin-turbo 2.9-litre six-cylinder TFSI that will deliver 331kW at 5700rpm and 600Nm at 1900rpm, sending it thundering to all four wheels (because quattro) via an eight-speed tiptronic automatic.

That's enough, says Audi, to deliver a 0-100km/h sprint time of 3.9 seconds in the Coupe and the Sportback. Which is very, very quick.

There’s the official figure, which is 12.1L/100km on the combined cycle, and then there’s the real-world figure. It’s not really fare to judge fuel use when you’ve just stepped off a racetrack, but rest assured it was a large number, which is to be expected really.

The Aston’s 73-litre fuel tank prefers 98RON fuel, too.

The RS5 Coupe will sip a claimed 9.4L/100km on the combined cycle, and emit a claimed 208g/km of Co2. It's fitted with a 58-litre fuel tank. 

The RS5 Coupe will the same 9.4L/100km, but emit 209g/km of Co2.

It's funny, I never felt like the old Vantage wanted for power, but now I suddenly wonder how we ever made do with it. This feels like the engine and the outputs that should have always been, such is the way it suits the nature of Aston’s most performance-focused model.

Everything is about the driver here. From the suspension tune to the gearbox mapping and the increase in stiffness everywhere. You’re supposed to feel like the main character, and you do.

Aston Martin have come under fire in the past for delivering cars that are a treat to look at, but didn't quite deliver the drive experience to match the appearance, and it's something the brand says it is actively rectifying with with the Vantage, and the Astons that will follow it.

The mission, it says, is to be spoken of in the same sentence as the Italian supercar makers when it comes to delivering driver engagement, and this 2024 Vantage is a considerable leap in that direction.

It is, above all else, fun. From the multi-stage ESP settings that you can pair to your bravery, to the retuned and raucous exhaust and the blistering acceleration.

More than that, it feels light and lithe on a racetrack, and super communicative, the front wheels talking through your wrists, and the back tyres through, well, the bit of you that hits the bottom half of the racing seat...

It is plenty fun, right across the park. The power is immense, but somehow it doesn't feel terrifying, partly because you're so dialled-in to the drive experience, and partly because the carbon brakes fitted to our test car were able to slow the Vantage so savagely it's as though we'd dropped anchor out the back window.

The Vantage does have a split personality, though, and it's one that really shows itself once you venture out onto the road. It's quiet, comfortable even, at suburban speeds, leaning more into grand tourer than bonkers track-day special.

The only downside being that, should you sit behind the wheel long enough, it becomes easy to forget you're driving something "super" at all. Well, until your right foot finds its way back to the accelerator, that is...

With our time behind the wheel limited to the RS5 Coupe, we can only really report on how the two-door feels on the road, but given the prodigious power on offer, it's unlikely the addition of two doors is going to make the Sportback any slower. 

In short, the RS5 is thunderously fast, collecting speed with utter nonchalance thanks to this thick and endless-feeling supply of power unleashed whenever you plant your right foot.

It makes even the most ham-fisted attempts at cornering feel fast as lightning, with the power flow able to make up for every slow entry and exit by simply piling on pace between bends. 

But that's what you expect from an RS model, right? So perhaps more impressive is the RS5's ability to transform back into a relatively sedate urban cruiser when the red mist subsides. The suspension is firm, especially over rough road surfaces, and you do need to be a little careful with the accelerator to avoid that lurching feeling at every green light, but driven calmly, it doubles as a everyday car quite nicely.

Like in the RS4, we did find the gearbox felt a little quick to change at pace, shifting up or down at strange moments on the way into or out of corners, but you can reclaim control via the paddle shifters.

The safety story begins with six (Coupe) or eight (Sportback), and the usual suite of braking and traction aids, but then climbs into the tech-savvy stuff from there.

You get a 360-degree camera, adaptive cruise with stop and go, active lane assist, front and rear parking sensors, AEB with pedestrian detection, rear cross-traffic alert, an exit warning system, blind-spot monitoring and turn assist, which monitors oncoming traffic when making a turn.

It's a lot of gear, and it all contributes to Audi's five-star ANCAP safety rating, awarded in 2017 to the A5 range.

Aston Martins in Australia are covered by a three-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty, but you can extend that for one or two years, at a price.  You’ll be visiting the service centre annually, too.

Audi vehicles are covered by a three-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, which is feeling more than a little underdone when compared to some competitors.

Services are due every 12 months or 15,000kms, and Audi allows you to pre-pay your service costs for the first five years, at a cost of $3,050.