Bauhaus and the beast
Two superb cars, but it’s the S7 that excels in this territory. Good value, too
Ray Leathern
Although surprisingly fun, the E53 doesn’t have the S7’s balance of talents
Gareth Dean
The S7’s comfort and crafts-manship give it the edge over the AMG E53
Marius Boonzaier
Smooth powertrain and composed ride make the S7 a wonderful drive
Nikesh Kooverjee
When it comes to combining performance and comfort in the automotive sphere, few marques are quite as adept as the performance arms of the Mercedes-AMG and Audi Sport. Throughout the years they’ve managed to take their respective parent firms’ more workaday models and infuse them with a healthy dose of power and visual panache without leaving behind a Frankensteinian mess. Their latest offerings – in the guises of the Mercedes-AMG E53 Coupé 4Matic+ and Audi S7 TFSI Sportback quattro – are perfect cases in point. Yet, for all their technical similarities, they present two distinct sides of the balanced performance car coin. We drove them back to back to see which one comes out on top.
WHAT ABOUT THE CLS?
There will no doubt be readers taking in these two cars pitted against one another and asking: why didn’t the CAR team put the S7 up against Mercedes-AMG’s CLS53 4Matic+? It’s certainly a fair point. At R1 683 320, the CLS53 sits squarely in the S7’s price bracket and its four-door coupé packaging is a closer match to that of the Ingolstadt car.
Given that the CLS53 shares so much of its mechanical DNA with the E53, including its powertrain and a mildly stretched version of Mercedes’
