ARCH RIVALS

Audi's RS4 is going out on a high with the Competition version; Alfa Romeo's Giulia Quadrifoglio fights on with a new facelift. The two meet for a shootout

- JAMES TAYLOR

IT'S NIGHTFALL WHEN I COLLECT THE RS4. IT'S TUCKED UP in the evo office car park, squatting menacingly in the shadows, orange sodium light from the security lamps hinting at the outline of its broad box arches. Its wheels are tucked up inside its arches too, making it clear this is not a standard RS4 Avant.

The RS4 Competition is limited to just 75 cars in the UK, bidding farewell to the B9 generation with devil-in-the-detail software and hardware tweaks, chief among which is the option of low-riding, manually adjustable, Coilover suspension. You might remember it from Evo 314, when it squared up to the BMW M3 Touring.

While the current RS4 is reaching the end of its life cycle, the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio is gearing up for the twilight years of its own run with a 2024 model year facelift. Like its Stelvio Quadrifoglio SUV sister tested on page 24, it's been given new headlights, a 10bhp power bump, an interior spring-clean and a new mechanical limited-slip diff. The Giulia Quadrifoglio now starts from £78,195, while the RS4 Competition is £84,600, an increase of around £11,600 over the regular RS4. Tomorrow morning we'll bring the two cars together. But first the prologue: the journey home in the Audi, and my first miles behind the RS4 Competition's Alcantara-trimmed wheel.

I've just returned from an overseas launch, swapping from the Fast Fleet 911 GTS into the Audi after hacking up from Heathrow on a wiggly reroute around closed roads. It's late, I'm tired and slightly wired, my mind partly on the writing I didn't quite manage to finish on the plane, and I just want to get home. Perfect RS4 conditions, in other words. Roads mostly empty barring a few dawdling cars. Cold tarmac. Heated seats on. The B9 RS4 has always been an easy - and very swift - car in which to make fatigue-busting progress. Just not a hugely involving one.