The compact saloons

BMW M3, Audi S4, AMG C43

Compact saloons, those are the very popular cars of young families and there are lots of them round from 1.6 litres of displacement up to 3 litres and V6 engines. But there is a small league of high performance compact saloons in Europe like the M3, the S4 and the C43.

The BMW M3 is already a legend and the last version with its 3201ccm in-line 6 and its 321 bhp at 7400 rpm and 350 Nm is the most powerful of all three models presented here. Having a six speed manual transmission the M3 c oupe accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in 5.5 seconds and it has a top speed of 250 km/h. At the moment only the M3 convertible is still in production but we have to wait for next generation M3 coupe and saloon.

The Audi S4 is a newcomer. Before there was the Audi S2 with its 2.2 litre engine turning out 227 bhp but now the new S4 has a V6 with 2671 ccm, 5-valve-twin-turbo engine. This engine has 265 bhp at 5800 rpm and a maximum torque of 400Nm between 1850and 3600 rpm. The S4 has a top speed of 250 km/h (governed) and accelerates from 0-100 km/h in 5.6 seconds.

The last one is the Mercedes C43, which followed the C36. This time AMG planted the new V8 with 4266ccm and 3 valve per cylinders into this small family saloon. The engine delivers 306 bhp at 5850 rpm and it has a maximum torque of 410 Nm between 3250 and 5000 rpm. The C43 also has a governed top speed of 250 km/h and its acceleration from 0-100 km/h is 6.4 seconds. The C43 is only delivered with an 5-speed automatic transmission. In comparison to the M3 and the S4 the AMG C43 is more an individual and sporty luxury saloon where as the other twos are more sportcar like with its 6-speed manual transmissions.