Audi RS4 vs BMW M3 vs Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG

For much of the day, the quiet Taunus mountains in Germany -- rolling green hills, prosperous farmland, dark Hansel and Gretel pine forests,Volkswagens driven slowly by well-groomed women on narrow smooth roads -- sound like Darlington raceway. From sleepy hollow to days of thunder.


You just don't hear sounds like this in Europe. Cars here have four-cylinder engines, coarsened by diesel rattle. Even performance cars, short of the big-ticket Ferraris, have turbocharged four- or six-cylinder motors. In this neck of the woods, V-8s-and only V-8s can make this kind of sound-are as rare as Ford pickups and Dunkin' Donuts.

But the brand-new Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG and the more mature Audi RS4, especially in thunderous sport-exhaust mode (yes, a switch dials up the Darlington on the Audi!), sound like Jeff Gordon's DuPont Chevy coming pedal-to-the-metal around turn four-big revs, big bellowing exhaust, big power, big American noise.

All three sedans have V-8 power. All three, then, are Yankee-inspired, for while America didn't invent the V-8, Detroit (and Henry Ford) certainly popularized it. They made it American shorthand for musclecar.

Originally BMW's M3 used a far more typical European formula for big speed-a high-revving silky sweet Formula 1-based four-cylinder engine.

Since then, in the need for speed, four cylinders became six. Now, with the newest M3, six turns into eight.

Audi's fast-car history also is peppered with small four-, five-, and six-cylinder engines, usually turbocharged, invariably quattro four-wheel drive. Yet with the RS4, which first went on sale in the U.S. in August 2006, Audi dumped all that dainty, less-is-more Euro sophistication stuff and shoehorned the biggest possible V-8-of 4.2 liters-into the engine bay. The result was an M3-beater, the first time anyone has been able to say that about a small fast Audi.

So to beat the RS4, BMW followed suit. It's got to be a V-8. And don't spare the horses.

Mercedes has known about the advantages of big V-8 muscle-think outgoing C55-for some time. Maybe it was the Chrysler link that taught it the lesson. The new C63, with 6.2 liters of lung power, has the most Detroit-like spec of any small European sporting sedan. These are Detroit-size lungs. This latest fastest C-Class is as German, in fast-car philosophy, as a bowl of grits and a glass of Southern sweet iced tea.

On this glorious fall day in Germany, on winding roads that snake up and down the sides of mountains, all three cars assemble.