Is the 2013 Audi RS5 the best looking Audi ever?

when the first Audi A5 came out in 2008 Walter de Silva who was the boss of the entire Volkswagen group design he said that the A5 was the most beautiful car he ever designed and think about it 2010's that era it was peak of putting V8s in small German sports cars such as the RS5 which we're gonna review today from of course a front side rear interior and then we're going to take it for a drive but you also had the Mercedes C63 with its beastly brutal V8 and you also have the only M3 to ever have a V8 the E90 so it was a very interesting era and I think maybe the best ERA when it comes not just to the powertrains but also to the designs I mean just look at this beauty I can't stop looking at this color as well it's such a beautiful finish to this so let's start with the front end let's talk about this design huge thanks to my friends over at Urban motors for letting me review this car today click the link Down Below in the description or simply go to urbanmotors.com to check out this RS5 and their entire inventory of cool cars however you need to be fast otherwise I might actually get this myself so all we have right here is the face lifted version the first RS5 came out in 2011. if I had to choose between the facelift and the non-facelift I think I'm actually going to go with the non-facelift version for two reasons and those are two key Graphics in the front end that is missing on the facelift what was intact on the pre-facelift and when you look at the sketches I think those two features were intended to be a part of this generation A5 and RS5 throughout its life one was this Hood line you see this line going down here in the facelift it kind of melts in and disappears in the front and Fender but in the pre-facelift this line actually extends and continues right next to the grill and continues down to the lower part of the of the front end and Frames the front end in a very beautiful way so that's one of the reasons why I would prefer the pre-facelift the second reason is if we look at these headlights don't get me wrong I think if this front end looks absolutely stunning but I do prefer the more simple design of the first generation A5 and RS5 headlights for the simple reason that we have this being a square and it doesn't have this curvature to it it's a little bit bigger and last but not least it was one of the very first production cars to have the typical LEDs that we have in the R8 the R8 was actually the first one and then the RS5 continued that Trend by having those dots of LEDs going in in a very nice way and you can definitely tell that it's an Audi coming at you even today if you see a 2008 A5 or RS5 that it is an R RS5 and is an Audi because of that very strong identity in the front end so what separates this from for example a regular lesser S5 or or an A5 first of all we have these big intakes in the lower end I love this chamfer that we have going around it kind of frames it in a nice way and these fins two black fins cutting across what I would like to see here though is have this same feature this same texture or finish on the main Grill I know you can get this with the black blacked out Grill and the blacked out logo in the in the middle that's probably what I would go for because I think it kind of connects better with this feature right here one detail that I love about this front end is this very thin curvature we're going to have a look at the side view and I'm going to show you uh what I learned when I was studying car design when we were in projects with official Audi designers and what they told me when you design an Audi what you need to have in the side view we're going to talk more about that in just a second and we also talk about Big Grills today but the thing is you need you can still have big grills Genesis has huge grills today BMW also has huge grills but the problem there is that they're not as well integrated with the rest of the front-end graphics and in this case we have the same angle here as we have in the headlights stuff like this means that it is integrated well in in the front end we have this angle here same being as this angle in the lower part of The Grille and all of this comes together and makes it feel like even if you have a huge Grill like this it still fits the front end both proportionally and graphically now as you know the most important view to review the proportions of a car is definitely in a side view and just have a look at all these beautiful lines that we have going on in the RS5 I totally agree with Walter de Silva when he said that this is the most beautiful car he ever designed and that same something because he was the boss of Volkswagen entire group so he designed a lot of cars over part of Designing a lot of cars so when I was studying in Italy studying car design they talked we did projects with Audi Volkswagen and Lamborghini so the Audi designers they said that this line here which by the way is just a beautiful line this looks like it's actually a a pan line that's been sketched onto the body because it has this peak to it so it's not just a a a section of two surfaces meeting where it meets it has this peak that creates a very sharp line in the new RS5 I think they took that a little too far and I think that line is protruded too much but here it sits just perfect so what they wanted to do is the Audi designer said that you need to be able to sketch an Audi using just three lines so you have this line at the bottom right here and then you have the beautiful shoulder line dipping over the rear axle and then continuing straight and then going back up over the front axle and the reason they have that is because they want to some sort of way to visualize the Audi Quattro four-wheel drive system and they do that by having these two lines here going above the rear axle and the front axle having this bit of a curvature going right above these two points now one way that you can separate the RS5 from the S5 and the A5 is that this this actually sits a little lower from Factory not by much but just a little one thing that I would change here though if I were to get this RS5 I would probably change back to the original 20 spoke 20-inch five spoke wheels because those Wheels to me they feel like they're a big part of the Audi RS5 design these look fantastic and I love the way they sit flush almost with the Bodywork but the original five spoke designs they feel like they're part of the RS overall design ever since the first S3 and the RS4 the b5s Audi RS models have always had these special fi or multi-spoke Wheels very simplistic Wheels they feel bigger than they actually are and I think I would switch those out and bring back the original Wheels to this design as well another detail in the side view that when I see it now inside view kind of makes sense to have the front grille B silver as well is that we have this silver trim piece going around the window and on top of that we also have the typical silver side mirrors for the RS models I know these days you can get these side mirrors in whatever you want in carbon fiber even but to me I would definitely stick with the silver specifically when you have a gorgeous deep metallic blue like this this makes the side mirrors pop and you instantly know if you're into cars that when you see a silver side mirrored Audi you know there's something special about it alright guys coming back to the three-quarter rear view of the RS5 I think this looks so planted with the wider fenders that we have on the other RS5 model this is one detail that I absolutely love about the A5 all the way up to the RS5 they all have this detail when you look at the original design sketches of this generation A5 they call this the nail spoiler you can see why because this has one little curvature right at the very end point the top part of this rear end and it definitely adds this sharpness to the rear end we don't need a wing we don't need a small M spoiler up here because this does that job even better this is integrated in the Bodywork and I think it's one of these details that maybe not only a lot of people notices but it makes such a huge difference to have this integration in the rear end then we have the taillights these are updated for the facelift we have this led if I look at the facelift and the preface lift in the rear I would definitely prefer to have these beautiful taillights super simplistic stretching out the body even more in a horizontal way because they're so thin and we have the reverse camera mounted right here good position looking down here though this is where it gets really special with the RS models as you know Audi has a pretty unique way of Designing their tailpipes and this is no different specifically here in the RS5 you have huge bazooka Taylor pipe I can put my fist in here and I'm not even touching the edges that's how big these tailpipes are you also have this nice cutout for the diffuser and I also like that this is body colored usually I don't like these uh diffuser diapers I call them when you have a body colored piece that is not really connected to the rest of the body I would maybe want to see this in black but having this framing in the body color it just makes it pop it pops out the the rear diffuser more than If This Were to be black and I think it looks really good on this car looking at it from a rear view even though you're not a car person you do realize with the wider stands The Wider fenders these big diffusers and the Bazooka title pipes you definitely know that there is something special about this Audi this spoiler is not enough of a spoiler for you you do have the option to engage this automatic Wing at the rear and this pops up at I think it was 75 miles per hour but there were also a button inside which pops it up manually so you can show off while you're cruising through a 20 mile per hour school zone welcome inside the 2013 Audi RS5 and immediately when I sit in here this is a place where I want to be for a very long time I love everything in here Everything feels like it's almost hugging you I don't know why because the the dash itself or the of the center console is not really angled towards the driver much but somehow Everything feels like it's kind of creeping in on you and I really like that feeling I still have a lot of space in here we have carbon fiber trim around the gear selector we have physical buttons for what the most important things remember this is 2013 when they did Interiors the proper way we also have a infotainment screen that also sits very deep underneath this big cap that kind of covers both the infotainment screen and the gauge cluster you have analog technometer and speedometer with a small little display in the middle personally you know me by now I don't need anything else than this one thing I do want to change though if I were to buy a car like this the RS5 I would probably get some aftermarket paddles because these I can barely see the plus side and the minus sign sitting at a normal driver position so I want to have them extend a little bit further above and below this spoke so I can clearly see them I do kind of like that they're attached to the steering wheel I'm not sure if I prefer them being attached to the column itself or the steering wheel I think both work pretty well and we have some nice vents typical vents that don't try to hide anything they're right there in a proper glove box as well with the Quattro of course sign right here on the dash looking at this steering wheel a very simple design it's kind of small I like that I don't really necessarily like big steering wheels this feels small and sporty you have a flat bottom steering wheel with the beautiful RS5 logo to remind you of what you're sitting in and what you're driving you also have RS5 in the gauge cluster stamped on the tachometer and you have RS5 right here in the seats all right so let's fire it up real quick sounds fantastic [Music] in front we have a 4.2 liter naturally aspirated V8 with 450 horsepower and 320 pound-feet of torque which I feel feels a little low to me but at the same time you got to keep in mind that this V8 revs to 8 300 RPM which is just insane for a V8 this size we're taking the Audi RS5 for a drive and this is really exciting for me because as I said I agree with Walter de Silva I feel like I'm doing my surroundings a service right now by just driving this car so they can have a look at it as it goes down the road that's how beautiful I think this car is and it it's going to age really well this design because it has those Timeless proportions in key lines of Audi intact in the body of the car this is going to look just as good when it came out in 2013 as it will in 21-13 is going to be a classic and I don't think that only has to do with the powertrain this is the one of the best engines out it has ever made [Music] and it sounds so good but it's a naturally aspirated 4.2 liter V8 you have 450 horsepower 316 pound-feet of torque which I said feels sounds a little low and you can hear the rumbles on the downshifts I just love everything about this car it's such a cool Driving Experience RS models in the past used to have this kind of uh notion about them that they were front heavy and that that was true they really did understeer a lot and the reason for that was because the engine sat in front of the front axle now in these models these later RS models they've moved the engine back so it feels a lot better in the corners as well it is just a fantastic Driving Experience even though I'm just going straight here but still it just feels solid I feel like I have a lot of power under my right foot and the noise is constantly there those downshifts oh I'm gonna miss V8s now we have twin turbo v6s and four cylinders trying to compensate for what the naturally aspirated V8 has when it comes to just noise vibration and power but they're doing a good job but it's still not it doesn't compare to the uh uh to the naturally aspirated V8s so I'm in manual mode now I'm going to take it a little easy so we get some distance to the car in front of us and let's see what this has [Music] oh what A noise I have a big problem I really really want this car I think it's almost a perfect sports car for Colorado with the Quattro with brush system you're covered during the winter you don't need to worry about traction and stuff like that this car will get you where you want to go even in winter conditions and on top of that it is by far one of the best looking Audis ever made even though I personally prefer the the pre-facelift version this still looks so good specifically with the new LEDs that we have in the front and the rear another thing that's very interesting about the RS5 is that it has a dual clutch automatic even from 2011 the face the preface lifted board version even had this super Snappy dual clutch automatic and I think it has to be one of the uh the the earliest dual clutches automatics that came out to the market because it feels really good and I would assume if you go back to 2011 12 years ago you wouldn't think that the a uh you know Auto manual with the paddles like this would be this quick but it actually is it feels like a proper modern dual clutch automatic and that that was a huge surprise to me unfortunately I have to return this car even though I really don't want to thanks again to urbanmotors.com for making this review happen linked to their full inventory Down Below in the description

Channel: TheSketchMonkey

Views: 43,565

Keywords: audi rs5 v8, rs5 v8 review, 2013 audi rs5 review, audi rs5, rs5, audi

Id: eZ_s70T_0QM

Length: 17min 17sec (1037 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 08 2023