Fast and Furious – But Who's Who in This Audi RS 6 v BMW M3 ¼-Mile Shootout?

Knighted with high-performance nobility titles inherited by birth in their respective families and further imbued with the ‘RS’ and ‘M’ coats of arms, the two family-friendly sedans seen in the video below have very little in common with standard, day-to-day soccer mom station wagons.

The two cars got on their high horse(power) with an all-out go-fast treatment that transmuted them into straight-line demons. Not that the base cars were garden snails, but the finished works from the tuners are blasphemous. If these still qualify as family cars, the Adams family would probably take the kids out for a spin.

Regardless, let’s look at the specs and see what’s what in flat-out land, where these two line up for a quarter-mile brawl. In alphabetical order, the 2020 Audis RS 6 sports a heavily modified four-liter V8 with twin turbos and altered internals to put down 965 hp (978 PS) and 915 lb-ft (1,240 Nm).

The car has been featured in several Officially Gassed YouTube videos, coming out on top each time. No wonder, since the monstrously powerful grocery-getter from Ingolstadt is the standing champion as the world's fastest C8 Audi RS 6 in the 100-200 kph (62-124 mph) sprint, with a 4.72-second top score.

This Audi prefers to keep a buttoned-up demeanor because, if it were to roll up its sleeves, the ace of ‘water/methanol injection’ would fall out. And that is one serious power-boosting trick used by high-end independent tuning companies. ABT – one of Germany’s most reputed high-speed-delivering enterprises – retorted to a similar solution (with ethanol instead of methanol) for their most powerful creation to date – the 1,000-hp Audi RS 7 Legacy Edition.

On a low note, the C8 RS 6 featured in the video is one heavy mothership, playing a two-ton tune for an overall 465 bhp/ton (459 PS/ton) rating. An eight-speed box with a torque converter backs the all-wheel drive system (the notorious Quattro).

Stepping up against this unrivaled, undefeated champion is an ambitious BMW M3 xDrive from the same year as the Audi, sporting similarly radical modifications on its powertrain. The not-so-tasty-styled Bimmer is rated at 457 bhp/ton (451 PS/ton), low in both the power and weight sectors.

Its three-liter straight six breathes via a duo of air-squishing turbos to spit out 830 hp and 910 Nm (819 PS / 671 lb-ft). The port-injected output goes to all four corners with the undivided help of an eight-speed gearbox mated to a torque converter.

The BMW may be outgunned on paper, but it has a very slim-fit attitude: from the factory, the car weighs 1,865 kg (4,112 lbs). However, the driver took the ‘family car’ part as an offense and removed the unnecessary burden. That would be the seats, both the passenger’s and the entire rear row, shaving some 50 kg (about 110 lbs) off the car’s body mass index.

This car is also a world record holder in its own right. As claimed by the tuner, this BMW M3 G81 is capable of 0-60 mph (97 kph) in 2.35 seconds and hits the 440-yard mark in 9.74 secs at 141 mph (227 kph). Perhaps even more relevant is the 100-200 kph time (60-124 mph) of 4.55 seconds, 22 hundredths of a second quicker than the Audi.

Again, paper math is as good on the track as a rice-paper umbrella in a hailstorm, and the car is only half the story in any race. Remember the words of a notoriously arrogant Italian who stated that his cars always won races, but it was his drivers that lost them, and that dictum, as politically incorrect and excluding and profoundly insulting as it was, had a certain amount of truth in it. (His name is Enzo Ferrari, if any keyboard warrior seeks further explanation).

The cutthroat cars lined up for today’s race are no exception from this maxim: the reaction time is paramount, and it can mean the difference between a win and a defeat. The roll races prove this all too well – the BMW misses the mark by a blink, and the Audi shoots off into the sunset, crossing the finish line first. The second round sees the Bimmer claiming the laurels, so it’s all down to the decider.

The RS 6 seals the two-best-out-of-three deal with a 4.91-second 100-200 kph run, fractionally more rapid than the M3’s five-second flat best performance. Note that the third race is the closest match in the recorded history of the YouTuber’s drag racing events, with the winner putting less than a foot (30.48 German metric centimeters) between its front bumper and the rival’s foremost point.

The standing quarter-mile drag races are a different story altogether: eager to close the dispute, the Audi jumps the gun (and the start) and leaves a trail of dust behind it. To no avail, though, since the BMW is hot on its heels and catches up almost immediately, getting in front and staying there for the rest of the 1,320-foot dash.

The Bavarian Barbarian won the second race, leaving this epic dispute without a definitive winner and with a bundle of mixed feelings. The München monster bests a 10.05-second standing quarter at 140.69 miles per hour (to stay true to German accuracy, this equals 226.37 kph).

More to the point, it would seem that the tuner’s statements about the car’s acceleration were spot-on correct. The 830-hp BMW M3 Touring takes 2.37 real-life-surface seconds to get from absolute zero to 60 mph (97 kph). The Ingolstadt orc has to settle for runner-up, with its 10.20-second personal best and a 139.67 mph top speed (224.76 kph). It also fell behind the Bimmer in the 0-60 run, with a 2.47-second high grade.

If you want to recap, let’s underline the main differences between the Audi and the BMW: one extra liter, two more cylinders, 130 extra hp, 330 Nm (243 lb-ft), and 8 bhp/ton over its adversary, and still lost the drag races. Measure it in inches or miles; a Win is a win no matter what.