Audi Confirms New RS3 To Dominate Class With 400 HP Turbo 5 Cylinder

I have a question - agent 009 -

This is a car that MIGHT be produced two years into the future - How can you CONFIRM that it will dominate its class? Do you really think that other manufacturers will not up the ante too?

Like the folks who claim to be building a 3-series killer or an M-killer, I say wait until they're in production and make a comparison then. That's why we have so many BMW wanna-bees and "class killers" on paper, but not in fact.

Amen.

Where have you been? Every Autospies headline has ALOT of presumptuousness built in, and I am sure it's by design to get the blood crackling and the posts happenin'. It's the Autospies way! :) :)

While I get that a 5-cylinder engine has Audi tradition, we have to remember that the 5 cylinder was created because VWAG was too lazy to design a V6 for the Audi 100/5000, so they tacked a cylinder onto the Rabbit's engine.

I'd rather have a force-inducted VR6.

I believe that the 5 Cylinder - which was designed for the Audi 5000 (Decades ago) - came about because VW did not have enough room under the Hood for a straight 6 and did not have a VEE configuration. At that time - Audi was not a premium brand - it competed with Volvo - Saab - Citroen - and other European second tier manufacturers. Audi need a larger car to get into the American Market - but did not have the platform for it - so they enlarged a smaller car - and it actually worked well - the 5000 was a hit at the time.

As far as the NVH issues - today - the introduction by Mitsubishi of the counter rotating Balance shafts - along with the Gm introduction of the split journal crankshaft(in the old Buck 3.8) - has largely made some less desirable configurations of an engine less of a problem.

I read somewhere a long time ago that Audi wanted the power of a 6 with the efficiency of a 4. Hence the 5 cylinder engine. Wasn't it derived from M-B's 5 cylinder diesel??
I've never read anywhere about Audi being too lazy to build a .

It was NOT derived from Mercedes. Audi probably borrowed the engineering-on-a-shoestring design frugality, but it was not a Mercedes engine.

The Audi 5 was derived from the VW 4 cylinder used in the Golf, Rabbit, Scirocco, Fox, etc. with a cylinder tacked on.

The "power of a 6 with the efficiency of a 4" is just bullspit marketing spin.

Why create an engine that has inherent NVH issues when a V6 of the same size would be far smoother, better for platform packaging, and return identical MPG?

Engine size, not configuration, is a good predictor of MPG and engine configuration is a pretty good determiner of NVH.

Get a grip there MDingger, wasn't my post a question???
I recall reading that while Audi was under Daimler ownership, the use of the 5 cylinder diesel was shared. That knowledge Audi gain/acquired is what made them, again from what I read, use this configuration.