S V E N D H O S T I N G . C O M
DESIGN • PASSION • INSPIRATION • FOREVER LEARNING • SIMPLIFICATION • SURPRISE • FUN!!
A PASSION FOR CARS: my current ride... an AUDI A4 PRESTIGE, one beautiful car...
Stylish. Comfortable. Lots of nifty features that are useful and improves safety. Plus an engine that sparks an enthusiasm for driving and a dynamic sport suspension that does it all. The all-new Audi A4 sedan runs that fine line between luxury and sportiness. After spending hours behind the wheel, both on the open road and on the track, I can testify that the new A4 is all that and a little more.
Once I got past the sexy new design of the A4, I found the hidden jewel of this intellectual 4-wheel “fox-in-wolf’s” clothing to be the electronically controlled dynamic suspension. The sweet part is that the steering response, engine and transmission are all on the alert for when the driver decides to get “jiggy-with-it” and dance the night away on his or her favorite curvy mountain road. Once the sensors detect road conditions and driver input want some action, everything tightens up for some fancy dance moves. The transmission and shifts get tighter boosting up the engine revs and the steering response becomes more sensitive to steering input from the driver. After your favorite section of road runs out or you back down into normal, mundane driving mode, the A4 becomes mild-mannered Clark Kent again and everything goes back to the previously selected driving mode.
Testing out this multi-talented suspension needed more than just a few turns in the hills around the San Francisco bay area. So, I signed up for a track day at Thunderhill Raceway and flogged the A4 harder than a convicted horse thief. The changing weather gave me the perfect opportunity to test the Audi Quattro system on both a dry and very wet track. Getting a rainy track day in October was way more than I could ever hope for in typically sunny California.
Does the new A4 perform? The short answer: better than the Temptations performing their classic hits at the Apollo Theater.
The morning was cool and gray with showers in the forecast for the afternoon. For the morning track sessions we were on a dry track and that gave me time to get acquainted with the new A4’s suspension and tires under dry conditions. It also served as a good baseline as to how the A4 performs under hard acceleration, braking, and dicing through the turns. Switching from “comfort” mode to “dynamic” sport mode enabled the A4 to become an able performer with the suave moves of Gregory Hines. Steering response had the weight and responsiveness of a veteran tap-dancer. The new Quattro all-wheel drive system divides the power split 40/60 between the front and rear wheels, giving the A4 great balance entering and exiting the turns. Understeer is just an old memory associated with the previous generation of A4s. Power delivery from the 265 hp 3.2L engine through the 6-speed Tiptronic® transmission was smoother than Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers dancing “Cheek to Cheek”. The only thing keeping me from getting overzealous were the all-season tires squealing like an 8 year old school girl around every turn. I could imagine the turn workers shaking their heads everytime I came around to their stations. With the all-season tires constantly reminding me about their adhesion limitations, I gave courtesy point-by’s to the spec Miatas and Porsches setup with race rubber.
