Audi has pulled the covers off of the RS5 Sportback at the 2018 New York Auto Show. The RS5 Sportback is the latest version from the RS5 family, following in the footsteps of the RS5 Coupe. As first impressions go, the four-door performance sedan not only looks positively stunning, it also packs a mean punch that allows it to accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in just under four seconds.

The Audi RS5 Sportback has a mean one-two punch. It’s a sight to behold, a credit to Audi’s design team. I’m not going to spend too much time talking about its design, but there are some noteworthy elements that deserve mentioning. The front section, in particular, looks amazing. From the headlights to the Singleframe grille with the RS-specific honeycomb air intakes, every design element in this part of the car is spot-on. Even the sharp lines outside the intakes create some aggressive depth to the sedan. The coup de grâce, though, is that sloping hood with the sharp creases. We saw a similar design on the RS5 Coupe, but this looks like it was creased to perfection. Combine that with the car’s dimensions — one inch wider and 0.28 inches lower to the ground than the RS5 Coupe — and you have the makings of a very solid design job. Good work, Audi. The RS5 Sportback is about as “RS” as it can get.

Let’s talk about its performance abilities now. The RS5 Sportback is powered by the same 2.9-liter, turbocharged, V-6 engine that you can see under the hood of the RS5 Coupe. Not surprisingly, it offers the same amount of output — 444 horsepower and 443 pound-feet of torque — as its coupe counterpart. It’s also mated to an eight-speed Tiptronic automatic transmission that sends all that power to all four wheels courtesy of Audi’s Quattro all-wheel-drive system.

All told, the RS5 Sportback is capable of splitting the times from 0 to 60 mph in under four seconds on its way to a top speed of 155 mph. If that’s not enough to satisfy your lust for speed, Audi’s also offering the Dynamic Plus package that increases the performance sedan’s top speed to a mouth-watering 174 mph.

It’s all shaping up to be a car that can give segment stalwarts like the BMW M3 and the Mercedes C 63 AMG a serious run for their money. It also begs the question, given the recent admission of Stephen Reil, Audi Sport’s Head of Technical Development, Stephen Reil, about the RS Coupe’s performance capabilities.

For those who need a refresher, Reil commented on the RS5 Coupe’s performance times last year and said that the numbers were conservative to what it could actually do. According to Reil, the RS5 Coupe’s published acceleration time of 3.9 seconds can be achieved under the “worst of conditions.” More importantly, he claimed that the coupé could actually sprint from 0 to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds “under ideal conditions,” making it faster than the M3 and the C 63 AMG.

If that was the case for the RS5 Coupe, should we expect something similar out of the RS5 Sportback? Is it actually faster than its published time? We won’t get an answer until the car goes out on sale, but we’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, keep staring at the RS5 Coupe. That’s what we’ve been doing for the last hour or so.

References

Read our full review on the 2018 Audi RS5.

Read more Audi news.

Read more New York Auto Show news.