2004 Audi S4 - Audi's S4 Is Getting Very Serious
Audi's taking off its kid gloves and donning a pair of boxers, in what is turning into an all out war for horsepower dominance among premium brands. With the RS6 rumor now validated - it's coming to the U.S. instead of Canada - we'll have to make due with a much more athletic S4 when it arrives in June of 2003.
Not that there was much wrong with the outgoing model. Few cars in its class had anything close to 250-hp when it came onto the scene in 1999, but the times have already changed monumentally. Now even the humble Honda Accord V6 comes close with 240-hp and the similarly priced Nissan Altima produces 245. 
In the premium sedan market Infiniti's agile new 260-hp G35 sedan would probably walk away from the old S4 too, on dry roads at least until the rumored AWD G35 hits the street. But inclement weather included, even Subaru offers its 227-hp all-wheel drive WRX model to Canadians while Mitsubishi is still questioning whether it will bring its even quicker AWD EVO VIII to the land of the almost free. The S4's arch nemesis BMW M3 is in a class of few with a tire smoking 333-hp. And what about Mercedes-Benz? Their 349-hp supercharged V6 equipped C32 AMG is now the class horsepower leader, albeit it only comes with an automatic transmission.