BMW 840d Drag Races Diesel E-Class Coupe and Audi A8

BMW 840d Drag Races Diesel E-Class Coupe and Audi A8
We seem to be talking about large German cars more than anything right now. Besides a V8, the thing that goes well with those is a nice 3-liter diesel engine.

BMW 840d Drag Races Diesel E-Class Coupe and Audi A8

Diesel is not dead. In fact, it's very much alive in these three cars. The star of the show is the BMW 840d, one of only two configurations that are available for the 8 Series right now. It's powered by a 3-liter inline-6 with two turbochargers producing 320 HP and 680 Nm of torque.

Its closest rival here doesn't look as sporty but is more than a match in the engine department. We are talking about an E 400 d Coupe. It too features an inline-6 bi-turbo, but it's slightly stronger at 340 HP and 700 Nm of torque.

But just by looking at the official acceleration times, you realize power alone isn't enough to put the E-Class ahead because it gets to 100 km/h two tens of a second slower. We suspect this has everything to do with how the 9G-Gronic hooks up at launch.

And finally, we arrive at the A8 50 TDI, which is the underdog of the race, but not in a good way. Its 3-liter V6 is down on power, torque and turbochargers, not to mention the added bulk of a luxury limousine 4-door body. At the time of this race, there wasn't anything better. Of course, Audi just launched a bi-turbo 3.0 TDI of its own, and with electric supercharging, it's probably better than BMW's. So we'll just have to hope Carwow does a repeat of this race.

For a 2-ton limo with 286 HP, the A8 does well. Heck, it even manages to win the brake test somehow, despite being the heaviest car here. Even though it's obvious, if you want to know which car wins the drag race, you'll have to watch the video and find out for yourselves. Spoiler alert: the German car won.

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