STRIKE THREE!

Two inline-fours, both very different. And our purported future thrown into the mix

- Kartik Ware

There weren’t many reasons to put these three machines together. In fact, I can’t think of a single one, except that we all thought it’d be a cool thing to do as the lead story for the anniversary issue. And it was, too — a 1017-bhp morning can only be a welcome occasion after all, especially when it involves three machines with very different takes on speed. Representing their respective lineages were the Suzuki Hayabusa standing in for the two-wheeled kingdom of which it is a revered figurehead; the MercedesAMG A 45 S, the racer boy king of hot hatches; and the Audi e-tron, harbinger of the electric era. I can assure you that tunnel vision didn’t take long to commence.

The Hayabusa’s 1340cc inline-four banging off its 8000-rpm launch control setting was enough to intimidate anyone, especially a couple of cars. Or so I thought; after all, both the Merc and the Audi have their own tricks up their German sleeves. The A 45 S, as I discovered on a high-speed track last month, is an accomplished speedster, with the world’s most powerful production inline-four motor rated at 421 bhp. The Audi, on the other hand, produces 408 planet-friendly horses and 68 kgm of efficient twisting force from standstill. The AMG’s 57 kgm and the ’Busa’s 15 kgm suddenly looked rather uncomfortable. And all of this while the Suzuki had only one wheel to put power down with, while the Germans gained the obvious advantages of their 4Matic+ and quattro all-wheel-drive systems. And yet.