STROKE OF GENIUS? AUDI FITS A DUAL-CLUTCH GEARBOX TO ITS S5.(NEWS)

Byline: MICHAEL TAYLOR

WE HAVE ALWAYS liked the Audi S5. It somehow feels more together than its siblings, and it's not just the heart-warming burble and midrange thump of its 4.2-liter V8 that makes us think that.

Its key advantage is that most un-Audi-like quality: ride. It's more supple across small bumps than the standard car, even though it boasts larger wheels and tires and has less road noise in the cabin.

But now its ride and its speed are not all it has over its little brothers. It's not all it has over Mercedes-Benz, either, because the S5 now has seven speeds. BMW's M3 only has had (until recently) six fully DIY speeds, and the Mercedes C63 only has six cogs inside an old-school hydraulic auto.

Besides, when Audi gave the S5 its extra cog, it went for a seven-speed DSG. That's fantastic news. But it's not called a DSG. No, that's a Volkswagen abbreviation that helps people understand what it is. Audi is happier with its own bewildering array of transmission titles, so this is the S Tronic (which is better than some of Audi's other Tronics for CVT, auto and F1-style systems). However you slice it, it's still a DSG box.

Audi says it is the first DSG ever to find a longitudinal home, though it arrived in Europe at about the same time as the Q5, which basically uses the same gearbox. (Technically, the Nissan GT-R uses a DSG, too.) Purely designed for quattro work, Audi's new toy usu-ally sends 60 percent of the drive down the manly end, it can manage a passable impersonation of an automatic trans, and it can still handle up to 9,000 rpm.

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