Hibiscus Boy

So my brother has this new silver allroad with tiptronic (or do they all have tip?). And I have an 99.5 MTM Stage 2 A4 Avant with GIAC/PES tip chip.

This weekend, he came around to scout my local trout streams (opening day in NJ is the 7th!). And we take both cars out to play cat and mouse on the back roads near my house. Norm (my brother) keeps up pretty well, even though he doesn't know the roads. From time to time in my rearview, I can see the allroad closing very fast, then fairly lurching around the corners in all its massiveness.

So then I drive the allroad with Norm shotgun. And damn if it's not a luxury car! Everything is so much more muted than in our A4 wagon. In sound, feel, everything. After a brief warm up, I put it into manual mode and step on it in the curvy bits.

Observations: First, it seems to have some throttle lag -- which our car does not. Is this conventional turbo lag or a by-product of drive by wire? Okay, it's very fast. But in a sort of unappealingly bland way. The whole experience is so much more insulated than the A4. And cornering wise, you really can feel the weight of the allroad vs. the A4. It's like a light heavyweight vs. a bantam boxer.

So then Norm gets behind the wheel of the A4, with me in the passenger seat. And we actually feel like we're going fast. But we also feel every road imperfection, even with the stock sport suspension and tires. We hear every bump, too. Plus the exhaust. Norm thinks it's more tossable. And responsive. More of a sports car than a luxury car. And, in his words, "it's more fun to drive."

In the end, I think the ultimate ride (besides an RS4) would be an S4 Avant, with a few go-fast goodies from GIAC/PES or MTM. My $.02 Happy fishing.