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Audi RS3, BMW M2, Honda Civic Type-R, and Mercedes-AMG A45 in Massive Comparison

OK, here's one that never gets old for German small sports cars fanboys, with the added bonus of a contestant from Japan as well. We've got one car from each of the members of Germany's Holy Trinity, plus the first turbocharged Honda Civic Type-R.
BMW vs. Audi vs. Mercedes-Benz vs. Honda 1 photo
Photo: Screenshot from YouTube
Quite a motley crew, some would say, looking at the very different stats of these cars. There are two all-wheel-drive hot hatches (the Mercedes-AMG A45 and the Audi RS3), one rear-wheel-drive coupe (the BMW M2), and another hot hatch, only this time with front-wheel-drive (the Honda Civic Type-R). If you thought that their engines might bring them closer together, you'd be dead wrong: there are two with four-cylinder two-liter turbo units (the A45 and the Type-R), but their power outputs are miles apart with 375 hp for the Merc and 305 hp for the Civic. Then there's the oddball, the five-cylinder 2.5-liter Audi with 362 hp, and the one with the largest engine - the 3.0-liter inline six on the BMW, developing 365 hp.

Except for the Civic, hich is examining the ocean's bottom floor by comparison, all the other three are within 15 hp of each other, so power alone won't be the decisive factor. There's also weight to be considered, and predictably this is where the Civic shines, weighing roughly 100 kilograms (220 pounds) less than the Audi and around 170 below the Mercedes, which is also the heaviest. The Japanese option is also the cheapest, and just like the power difference, by a very significant margin.

So, on the paper, this isn't exactly the most balanced tests possible, but how about the action on the track? The 0-100 km/h (62 mph) sprint times don't point toward a clear winner (4.2 s. for the A45 and 4.3 for the Audi and BMW), but they do seem to suggest who will be viewing the other three cars from the rear: 5.7 seconds for the Civic Type-R. Indeed, you get the feeling that a Volkswagen Golf GTI Clubsport S would have made a better case for front-wheel-drive cars out there, as it was recently crowned as the fastest among them on the Nurburgring. Then again, it might have not.

The video put together by the guys at Cars South Africa is over nine minutes long, but it's nine minutes filled with these four delicious cars, plus a conclusion that we will call "surprising," but not because of the actual winner.

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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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