Base price: $50,500
As Tested: $67,000
364-horsepower
4.2-liter V8
14 city/ 21 hwy
More info:
www.stasisengineering.com
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Ever wondered what would happen if the Audi R8 had incestual relations with the A4? No? Well, we didn't either. But if they did, their offspring would look like an Audi S5. Where the R8's low, sleek, exotic form screams for attention and the A4's boxy, four-door trim is a declaration of upwardly-mobile, middle-class practicality, the S5 lands somewhere in the middle, like a 4 in angry coupe form. The Challenge Edition S5 from STaSIS Engineering takes the already irate looking S5 and makes it downright livid with the addition of 20-inch forged Monolite wheels, stainless exhaust and red Alcon brakes.
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The cabin of the S5 is sumptuously adorned with leather, brushed aluminum and electronic wizardry, but the interior isn't modded at all -- maybe version 2.0 can at least have a branded shift nob. The handsome bolstered front seats are snug for brisk romps through canyons and the steering wheel feels as if it was molded to fit your hands. The shifter is a little bulbous, but the gear action is crisp, as are the read-outs from gauges and center mounted monitor. While no substitute for a pay-by-the-hour motel bed, unlike most sports coupes with padded shelves, there's enough rear passenger space to get to at least second base. Third, if both parties are double jointed, Hobbits or black belts in Pilates.
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It's on the road -- correction: mountainous, windy roads -- where the STaSIS Engineering tweaks come into play. Scream into a blind corner and tap your right foot on the brake pedal and the huge, inertia stopping six-piston Alcon calipers up front slow the nearly 3,900 lbs. of Audi almost instantly. Throttle out of the turn and the Ohlins suspension and upgraded rear antiroll bar sticks the S5 to the asphalt. If we can trust the performance specs provided by STaSIS (and they seem like upright citizens), there's an extra 10 horses and 15 lb-ft of torque from a retuned electronic control unit, enough to get you up and past the posted speed limits in seconds. What's most amazing about the STaSIS Challenge Edition S5 is not the 4.6 second 0-60 mph (versus stock 4.9 seconds), 60 lbs. of weight savings, 13.1 second quarter-mile time, throaty exhaust note or even the 0.99 g on the skid pad. It's that they tuned an S5 and it still drives like, well, an Audi. Although the entry fee is a bit steep, that's the price to pay for a tuned vehicle available through select Audi dealers with the factory four-year/50,000-mile warranty. Well-balanced and smooth, the Audi S5 Challenge Edition is a packaged car for aspiring weekend racers without the DIY-time or energy.
-- by Carter Jung
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