2005 Audi S4 in East Windsor

The Swabian Alb, Germany - Between Stuttgart and Munich, the Swabian Alb is a driving heaven, with wonderful roads, very little traffic, stunning scenery, and patchy law enforcement. It's the perfect playground for the Audi S4 Avant, the BMW M3, and the 2002 Mercedes-Benz C32 AMG--the ultimate batch of compact supercars. All three offer driving pleasure in abundance, despite having dramatically disparate design and engineering. The S4 Avant is a wagon, for instance, the M3 is a coupe, and the C32 AMG is a sedan. Audi believes in turbocharging and all-wheel drive. BMW's credo is a high-revving, normally aspirated in-line six-cylinder engine. And Mercedes-Benz breathes fire into its V-6 via an AMG-prepared supercharger.

The C32 AMG is the new kid on the block here. In the current German automakers' locker-room contest, its main mission is to beat the M3, the S4, and Audi's Europe-only RS4. To accomplish this mission, its supercharged V-6 engine makes 349 horsepower, sixteen more than the M3 and almost a hundred more than the S4. This puts the car from Affalterbach, home of AMG, on the provisional pole position for our drive from Reutlingen to Ulm. Like all AMG-tuned Mercs, the C32 relays its torque via a five-speed manu-matic transmission to the rear wheels. A welcome innovation pioneered by this model is the standard SpeedShift feature, which instantly selects the lowest possible gear when you nudge the lever to the left and hold it briefly in that position.... Read full article