stig said:audi < BMW
as i said earlier audi are just jumped up VW's and god knows what the S cars are and the S4 is no competitor to the M3 Topgear should be taken with a very small pinch of salt.
Try the RS4 as the M3 beater. The S4 had some inherant faults due to its design (engine mounted too far forward, v8 lacked grunt) which were corrected in the RS4 and the 420BHP 4.2 N/A V8 is an amazing engine.