Audi S5 4.2 FSI 2007 review

We are adrift in a raging sea of numbers. We're at the briefing for the newest of the countless models Audi has unleashed since 2004, and its very name is half numerical.

The S5 is a fresh departure for Audi, built on an all-new platform.

The S5 is the S-for-Sports model of the A5 coupe range that will roll out over the next six months or so.

Eventually it will consist of five main variants. All feature a direct-injection petrol engine; there's also a turbodiesel; and a choice of six-speed manual, tiptronic or CVT transmission.

Some have quattro all-wheel drive, others don't.

Here are more numbers. The S5 packs Audi's powerful 4.2 FSI V8, with 260kW/440Nm driven through a slick six-speed manual. (The auto arrives later.)

Riding on low-profile 19-inch rubber, it benefits from the latest version of quattro with a default torque split of 40-60 per cent front to rear.

This equation adds up to a 0-100km/h sprint time of some 5.1 seconds.

These, we can agree, are nice numbers.

Like most Audis, they look good and feel good, but always only up to a certain point, because they're undone by yet another two numbers.

This new platform will provide the basis for the next generations of Audi, most significantly the A4.

Yet despite the front axle being moved as far forward on the stretched wheelbase as is feasible in a configuration where the front wheels drive, the S5's weight distribution is still a decidedly unbalanced 56:44 front-to-rear.

That's an improvement on Audi's hooter-heavy and sharp-riding norm. It ensures the S5 will understeer on the same fast stretch of twisting tarmac that a 335i, for instance, would gobble up before asking for more.

Yet for all that; actually, partly because of that; the S5 is just about the perfect GT coupe for the time, place and buyer.

Audi's quite phenomenal year-on-year growth is all the evidence required that 'sheer driving pleasure,' at least in terms of charting dynamic extremes, is not nearly so important as a superbly appointed cabin, designer looks and an engine note that talks the talk.

Audi leaves the envelope stretching to the superb RS4 and startling new R8.

For their part, the S5/A5 speak the sort of language Audi's target market wants to hear.

The range should also speak to those who've reflexively bought a BMW coupe because the badge is right, but then wondered why it rides like a billycart.

(Hint: it's the same reason you have no spare tyre.)

It says things that even a must-have-a-Merc merchant might understand, at least those few Benz buyers young enough not to require hearing enhancement.

So if this reads like a marketing rave, then the people with designer glasses who work in ateliers have had at least as much to do with this coupe as those with engineering degrees.

Having met the S5 with its milder family members earlier this year in Italy, we re-encountered it this week at Phillip Island raceway and on a back-road run outside Melbourne.

If it was far more comfortable on the latter, the improvements brought by this new platform were at least evident in the former environment.

Turn-in is sharp, almost too sharp for the typically lighter-than-air steering.

You wait for the nose to begin pulling wide when pushing through a fast corner, but there is plenty of room to move in before that and a responsiveness that inspires confidence.

Firing out of corners, the S5 goes like an Olympic sprinter.

Traction is immense, backed up by a tolerant ESP and brakes that have a progressive feel to match their tremendous stopping power.

Aside from its always joyous note, the V8 is possessed of a tractability that often removes the need to downshift with the short-throw and easy-shifting manual.

Much has been made of the look of the thing, not least by its designer, Walter de Silva.

He might at least thank the boffins whose platform reduces the old Audi front overhang to almost pert proportions.

The thing is striking rather than beguiling, making an undeniable impression as it fills a rear-view mirror, daytime running lights aglow.

It seems almost churlish to mention that high-set sills make it a right bugger to judge where your nose is in relation to the object in front.

Rear vision is aided, but not perfected, by enormous wing mirrors that create wind roar when you're in sixth gear at freeway speeds.

The thing, of course, is not that you can see out but that people will look at you when you drive by.

And in that respect, the S5 does the maths.