Snark
05-21-2006, 02:00 PM
I attended the Streets of Tomorrow event in Atlanta this morning. Like others on this board, I was very impressed with the quality of the event. Everything was high-class all the way and Audi clearly went to great lengths to make you feel welcome. I arrived early Sunday morning so there were no lines but as I left, around 10:00a, people were pouring into the venue.
We were required to check out the Q7 first, of course. I was at the event primarily for the RS4 but I was pleasantly surprised by the Q7. My wife and I both liked it and she'll take a closer look when her Lexus lease expires next spring. Points to Audi for that.
We took a shuttle to Turner field to drive any non-RS4 we wanted and to take "hot laps" in the RS4. Because we were early there was basically no competition for the vehicles and we had fun driving pretty much the entire Audi line as well as some Lexus and BMW SUVs.
Of course, we only care about the RS4 here! Well, the hot lap was a lot of fun albeit pretty darn short. The acceleration seemed plenty good enough for my needs but it wasn't quite as "brutal" as I might have expected. (I think my driver wasn't as aggressive as some of the others we've seen in videos on the Net.) See the link below for a video I made of the ride with my crappy digital still camera's video mode. Sorry, the mic wasn't good enough to pick up the V8 sound very well, but it did capture me screaming like a little girl at the start. :-)
I will say that I "know some people" and I got to drive the RS4 twice. Since I was exploiting a business contact's indulgence, I was intent on being gentle with the Beast so I can't report anything about the true nature of its power. I will say that the torque was strong at all levels, as we've heard, and the S button is fun to play with. Shifting was amazingly easy, like butter.
I'm expecting my launch RS4 next month and, after spending five minutes with one today, I'm very excited about it!
PS Before anyone starts saying my ride was slow because the car's too heavy, I will delicately suggest that between the large-ish driver, my svelte wife, and my overweight self, we had about 725-750 pounds of humans in the vehicle. Your mileage may vary. :-)<ul><li><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=PmiCggwbDgQ">http://youtube.com/watch?v=PmiCggwbDgQ</a</li></ul>
We were required to check out the Q7 first, of course. I was at the event primarily for the RS4 but I was pleasantly surprised by the Q7. My wife and I both liked it and she'll take a closer look when her Lexus lease expires next spring. Points to Audi for that.
We took a shuttle to Turner field to drive any non-RS4 we wanted and to take "hot laps" in the RS4. Because we were early there was basically no competition for the vehicles and we had fun driving pretty much the entire Audi line as well as some Lexus and BMW SUVs.
Of course, we only care about the RS4 here! Well, the hot lap was a lot of fun albeit pretty darn short. The acceleration seemed plenty good enough for my needs but it wasn't quite as "brutal" as I might have expected. (I think my driver wasn't as aggressive as some of the others we've seen in videos on the Net.) See the link below for a video I made of the ride with my crappy digital still camera's video mode. Sorry, the mic wasn't good enough to pick up the V8 sound very well, but it did capture me screaming like a little girl at the start. :-)
I will say that I "know some people" and I got to drive the RS4 twice. Since I was exploiting a business contact's indulgence, I was intent on being gentle with the Beast so I can't report anything about the true nature of its power. I will say that the torque was strong at all levels, as we've heard, and the S button is fun to play with. Shifting was amazingly easy, like butter.
I'm expecting my launch RS4 next month and, after spending five minutes with one today, I'm very excited about it!
PS Before anyone starts saying my ride was slow because the car's too heavy, I will delicately suggest that between the large-ish driver, my svelte wife, and my overweight self, we had about 725-750 pounds of humans in the vehicle. Your mileage may vary. :-)<ul><li><a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=PmiCggwbDgQ">http://youtube.com/watch?v=PmiCggwbDgQ</a</li></ul>