【4K中字】德系內戰，奔馳AMG C43 vs 寶馬M340i vs 奧迪S5，直線加速賽

You're watching Throttle House. I'm Thomas. And I'm James. And this is a drag race. The sport-tuned luxury sedans are back. The BMW M340i and Audi S4 slash S5 have had some tech and appearance updates since we last visited them. But there have been no changes in the power department. And that is not true for the new Mercedes-AMG C43. Whose hand-built engine has gained horsepower and lost two cylinders along the way. Its new F1 technology comes at a price, however. And it's the most expensive of the three. So let's see if those upgrades can do the trick. OK. I'm in the M340i. Carsten is highly focused in the Audi S5 Sportback. Provided generously by our friends at Audi Queensway. Thanks very much to them. I'm confident. Thomas is in his favorite car, the C43. He called me. He loves it. And for that reason, he'll probably still lose. Because the last generation lost. And I think the M340i is just a monster. Just a monster. Launch control all the way. Let's do this. This is the C43 AMG. A pure AMG now. One man, one engine. This is the worst car that I've driven this year. Yeah. I'll elaborate on that in a minute. But anyway, this is a mild hybrid. Not a full plug-in hybrid like the C63. A mild hybrid four-cylinder. And it's very heavy. And I'm pretty sure the transmission and the engine speak two totally different languages. Anyway, let's see what happens. We have launch control now, so that's good. Air conditioning off. Let's do this. Here we go. Here we go. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go. And we're off. Audi, no longer with the Audi. I might have that Audi. Oh, I think I do. Oh, what? C43 is already in my side mirror. It's kind of in the top end. Cross the line in such a luxury, lovely, fast B58-motored BMW. Why is the seat belt so tight? It literally reefs this seat belt. Reefs it tight. I don't know, to add drama? When we first reviewed this, we said it wasn't super exciting. And I stand by that. It's luxury first. But boy, does it do this class of car well. Luxury slash sporty slash fast. Brilliant. Okay, so that's quicker than last gen. Yeah, I mean, Formula 1 technology, you technically podiumed. But that wasn't. You beat the Audi? I did beat the Audi. Wow, okay. There is Formula 1 technology. So basically what happens is that the mild hybrid actually spools up the turbo a little bit quicker. But all that stuff is not actually to add performance. I think it's to compensate for the fact that it's a 4-cylinder. Did the Audi beat you off the line? This is actually weird to get off the line because there's quite a lot of delay and a lot of lag. But it has F1 technology. It has race start now. It has race start. It has launch control now. So this now has it. It does. Well, because they have to throw everything they can at it to make you want to buy it because otherwise, why would you? Maybe the F1 stuff is for the roll race, right? Okay. F1 cars don't launch once, twice, a few times if there's a red flag? Yeah. It's got all the curves, all the ground effect. You can't leave the BMW as the king here. You've got to give that a shot. I'm not sure that we have a choice, but we can try. Let's try. Okay. All right. While I have you and we're setting up for the next race, I'll give you some more details as to why I don't like this car. So the engine is so gutless outside of boost that it requires about 4 down shifts to actually do anything. So you're cruising on the highway in 9th gear where it's the most fuel efficient because that's, you know, what the car's about, fuel efficiency. Then you have to go through at least 2 gears to make any forward progress at any time. And when you're kind of just putting around town, the engine and transmission don't seem like they communicate at all. It's, you know, when it's off boost, there's a down shift and the boost comes on and the next gear happens. So you're just... I was driving some passengers yesterday and they're like, why are you driving so crap? I said, I'm not. I'm just in a 4-cylinder AMG. It's hot in here. 3, 2, 1, go. Go, race. Oh, it's closer. Oh, interesting. Interesting. It's closer, but the BMW is edging ahead. Wow, those two are matched. I don't want to look backwards. M340i takes the win. What happened there between those two? It was close. OK. I see what's happened here. That is fascinating. OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can do that too. I know you can. Hang on. OK. He didn't line it up very well. It's precision driving, not his strong suit. Hello. M. What happened between you two? So, something rather fascinating. Go on. Mercedes is being very cheeky when you activate launch control. They all are cheeky. Yeah, but this was extraordinarily cheeky because I was really, really pulling on that Audi in the dig race. Yeah. And this time, barely. But you still won. I still just won. I think that is a different result from last time. We can look at the footage, but I think the C just came behind the S4 last time. So... Yeah, well, clearly in launch control mode, they are giving this everything. Full boost, full... like, there's extra stuff happening. Yeah. So, yeah, it didn't feel as quick in the roll race there. But everything was fine. Like, it automatically upshifted, but... They were all a little bit closer. You can see the launch control system just doing everything they can. It's so much. It makes such a difference. So is it called the C43 because you can see 43 reasons not to buy it now? Yeah, yeah. There's more than that. No, that's not fair, actually. It is now quicker than the previous one based on that race. Yeah, I think so. Not by much. But it is quicker. And sounds better? Nope. Is that much worse? Yep. Yeah. Any other things? Transmission's a bit jerky. It's worse, yeah. Yeah. The... It's heavier? Yes. Check. It looks nice. Yeah. Maybe just the C300's the move. Yeah. Just simple. Yeah. I can't tell the difference. So BMW's still first place? Yes. C43. Yep. Followed closely by this. Out of these three, I would take that car. And I really like that Audi. It's fun. It's nice. The Audi's great. Yeah. The suspension, that's a bit harsh. I think this... That's the everything. BMW's doing everything. It's trying to talk to me right now. You're doing too much, BMW. She's very polite. Pardon? The tech, I could do without, honestly. But that car overall is great. Yeah. All right. Anyway, that's all we need to say about that. Bring back the V8s and 6s, please. So there you have it. The BMW is still the king of the middle performance sedans. Even though when poked the right way, the C43 can be good fun and is quite quick. It just doesn't compare to the inline-six-powered M340i or the comfortable, speedy, and very dialed-in V6 Audi S5. This doesn't mean that a hybrid 4-cylinder formula can never work in this class. But let's just say we're not quite there yet. Thanks for watching.