This car not only sounds fast, it is fast and deceptively so

Evo publisher Mohamed, easily recognised by the Porsche Boxster tattoo inked across his forehead, has recently been forced to meet with a chiropractor on a weekly basis. His symptoms are getting worse by the day, and (so it appears) only worsen when he's in the Middle East. Mohamed recently visited Canada - and the first day there, his symptoms cleared up overnight. I have since deduced that, while in Canada, he was effectively on vacation and did little if no driving whatsoever. Furthermore, his Boxster was nowhere to be seen. It's not a second car either, but his daily driver, and I must say that whenever I get handed the keys, I suffer tremendously getting in and out of this particular car. I blame the engineers of Stuttgart for our publisher's spinal joint dysfunction; these injuries to his joints and associated nerves, clearly, a direct consequence of driving his flaming Boxster - every single day.

I have since become concerned for his diminished health, so set about campaigning for a new mode of daily transport. But he won't have any of it. I concluded that he needed something fun, sparky and somewhat of a design statement. It had to be a stroke of engineering genius and impractical enough to warrant some level of exclusivity. I therefore came up with a short list, and presented my two top choices to medicate his spine. Mohamed sighed with relief; no steam-powered Cadillac, complete with lay-z-boy sofas in the back and suspension made of goosedown.

Prising him out of his Porsche, for the benefit of his health or not, was never going to be an easy task. Knowing that the Porsche brand is not the 'be all and end all' when it comes to choosing a sports car, my mission was to prove, to our crippled publisher, that you don't have to settle for the compromise of two seats to have fun, these days. Flicking through the performance stats, I opted for a few feisty coupes on offer in this market - which I finally narrowed down to two, for my final presentation. JS

If Doctor Jon the Medicine Man's analysis is correct and I do have to trade from my beloved Porsche, I must say his remedy is reassuring. Of the two, I'd be more inclined to head to the nearest BMW showroom for a used Z4 coupe. After some careful reflexology (German-style), I found the 3-litre Z4 an excellent car, with lots of oomph (and perhaps just a tad more usability, as an everyday driver, than a Boxster) - depending on who you ask of course! I'm not going down without a fight I tell you, but after a week of back-to-back comparison tests my nod, in the end, went wholeheartedly to the Z4, which I found provided me with a more visceral and hard-edged driving experience than the Quattro. The Z4 Coupe is perhaps one of the few cars which, I would say, is as much fun to drive as my beloved Boxster. There I said it.

The first thing that strikes you about the Z4 is how darn good it looks. Following the catastrophic design exercise of the Z3 coupe, which looked like the offspring of a Z3 roadster and 3-series station wagon, the Z4 coupe's looks are a huge relief. Its proportions are beautiful from every angle. This car made me feel that BMW's design direction is back on track, after having lost their touch for a few years. The exterior 'flame surfacing' design philosophy actually looks very good on the car, and has a curious visual effect. Get inside the car and things are just as good. The interior is simple yet tasteful: a real driver's environment. The only thing that didn't gel was the cheapish finish to some of the fixtures. Twist the key though and you know why you chose the Z4: a glorious resounding inline 6 cylinder with a mellow growl. This car not only sounds fast, it is fast - and deceptively so. It pulls from virtually any rev range, in any gear, and goes like the wind. The engine sound goes from mellow to furious, and the acceleration doesn't let up - way beyond the time the front end starts to bob up and down.

It does this over the smallest imperfections too, much like a Porsche 993, but at least the steering wheel response is akin to Porsche precision too. While this may give us hard-edged sports car fans something to enjoy, the bone-jarring ride does get tiresome after a while. What were you thinking Jon? I can only imagine what the ride must be like on pothole-riddled roads in other parts of the world, if it was so disturbing on Dubai's velvet smooth road surfaces. This would probably be remedied if you opt for the smaller 17-inch wheels, with a good set of non-run flat tyres (which I hear is what the doctor ordered), instead of the optional 18in wheels on the particular Z4 we tested.

Impressed as I was by this car's power and feel at speed, I was even happier with its braking ability on the road. Pedal feel is good at virtually any speed and has a nice progressive feel to it. I was really starting to enjoy the car, putting the Boxster to the back of my mind. That was until I put the automatic shifter into manual mode and start fiddling with the steering-wheel-mounted paddle-shifters - which proved that BMW still hasn't gotten it quite right with their manumatic box. Yes the throttle blipping (whenever you downshift) is well executed and ensures that you don't get an unpleasant jolt, but shifts are still clunky and you can find yourself, quite easily, in the wrong gear. Even more frustrating was the downshifting experience - where the indicator shows a lower gear on the LCD readout (as soon as you push the paddle to downshift), only to revert back to the actual higher gear that the transmission was engaged in. It seems like the transmission couldn't make its mind up. If you really want a sports car, buy it with a manual transmission.

As much as Porsche, BMW, Audi and Mercedes Benz try to make automatic transmissions that shift and behave like manuals; it will never be as good as the real thing. The other negative point is that this car is not as well behaved, when driven on the limit, and is far less predictable than the TT, which has gobs of grip. It is here that the Z4 loses out, measurably. The BMW has a particularly nasty problem with snap oversteer too, and is not as easy to keep under control as the TT Quattro - which is only to be expected since it has all-wheel drive. Overall however; the Z4 was a highly enjoyable package, which I could probably live with as my daily driver, and as much as the Audi TT Quattro is also a superb package, it just wasn't as exhilarating a drive as the Z4 coupe. MK

At the Dubai Autodrome, the Audi TT got to go first - for the simple reason that it got there first! The Z4 may be fast, but hell it's a little nervy at speed. The 247bhp Quattro is nowhere near as exhilarating as the front-wheel drive, low-boost 2.0T version, but a 0:97sec difference between the two (in favour of the 4wd) tells an altogether different story. Smoother and less erratic, the four-wheel drive V6 was just over 2kph faster down the pit straight too. It felt as if it would keep going all day long without a hiccup.

The BMW fades a little quicker under pressure. The brakes were showing signs of fade after four flying laps, but we had been driving hard, all day, around Dubai. It's fairly insignificant, as we are still holding up - down the pit straight - at just over 191kph. This car was quicker; than the Audi still. We knew this to be the case before we'd exited the pit lane. It looked faster parked in the Technical Bay, for heavens sake. Putting in a flying lap of 01.21.8, the Z4 was speed-trapped doing 191.1kph at the end of the pit straight. I must point out that I had experienced a worrying tail-out moment, while exiting a roundabout a few days earlier, and had also noted that communication from the rear end was not the best. On the day of the track test this was accentuated by a ghastly lack of composure, as the Z4 slipped and slid around the track. It's as I expected, really. That said, 0-100kph was achieved in 5.8sec: against the 5.7 of the TT. Howling down the pit straight, the bass emitted from the 261bhp Beemer echoes around the grandstand. You really can see why so many folks have been sucked into buying the BMW brand. If only the ride could be as refined and responsive as the engine. Therefore, thinking long and hard about which coupe I'd buy, I decided that it would be the Audi. I'd driven the 3.2 V6 TT before, and was mightily impressed.

The original TT was an incredible success; deemed a cult classic, alarmingly, before anyone had even written a cheque against one. For those who loved nothing more than ambling along - parking outside their favourite hairdressing salon, latte bar or their very own PR agency - the TT just so happened to be the bee's knees. But then, those silly enough to test the sleek re-bodied Golf (expecting big power, deft handling and performance - to match the sports car aesthetics), were soon barking up the wrong tree.

In fact most ended up wrapped around a tree of sorts. So the TT was recalled. Yet as soon as Audi sedated the TT and put it back on the market, shock horror, it sold just as well as it did the first time around. It seemed that no matter how bad the TT was; it would just keep selling well. Luckily, the likelihood of Audi making the same mistake twice was nil.

First off, the new TT is no more a 'Golf with a snobby badge and a sleeker body'; instead a 150kg lighter model-specific construction, moulded from extruded aluminium. There are aluminium components too, with a wider track. It is this extra girth, 3-inches in total, which has helped the TT to steer away from being a cuddly coupe, and more towards a savage sports car.

But for me the biggest improvement is the cabin. Yes, long gone is the claustrophobia - the second kiss of death for the original TT. Instead of sweating buckets, looking for the nearest exit: you now have space to really explore the car. And, if that's not enough of a deal breaker for you, how about this... The twin-clutch six-speed DSG gearbox of the TT works: is incredibly quick; doesn't tell you what to do; and doesn't require a master's degree in head-patting/stomach-rubbing to fathom, like the Z4.

So, it is at this point that I strongly recommend those already dismissing the TT - for a love affair with the gorgeous Z4 - to immobilise your heart and put your brain into gear. I mean: test both cars and see if you really can live with the niggly manual mode of the automatic shifter, the unnerving front-end lift at speed, the light steering response and the back-breaking ride - even over the serenest of glacier-smooth surfaces.

In my mind the Z4, however much fun shooting from the junction when the traffic lights go green is, still has to deal with big stretches of road from time to time - and I wouldn't advise taking the Z4 on those days. Compared to the Audi's fabulous Quattro system (even greater with the Magnetic Ride giblets), the Z4 is darty and unsure of its own footing. The subtle rear spoiler, which rises to attention when you nudge over into ticket-issuing territory, probably helps.

The TT 3.2, to me, really is a more rounded drivers car, giving you the feeling that it wants to stretch its legs at every available straight, and safely keep you on the road too. But as is the case with most things - there are the good points, and then there are bad points:
In the case of the TT, the back seats might as well be made of crushed glass and horse manure - that's how likely they'll be sat in; the Z4 is no better. But the biggest downfall of them all is the design. As a standalone you'd order a TT as a living room ornament. But in a world of choice and competition it has to square up to the Z4, making the TT look a bit, well, old. The BMW maybe be just too over-designed for some tastes, and a little too plastic, but it has the visual magnetism.

At the end of the day if you want build-quality, rock solid stability at speed and good second-hand residuals, to help you sleep better at night, buy the Audi. If you want a style ambassador that will gain admiring glances, and put you in a far more sporty mood before you've even hunkered down into the snug seats, go for Mohamed's weapon of choice, the BMW. It's not even a 'horses for courses' conclusion either.

The Audi is by far the better car, simple - and I stick by that. But what the BMW lacks in thought and glue, it surely makes up for in showmanship. If you don't let any of your friends near your Z4 you'll be free to bask in all the praise from here to kingdom come. Any friend within a two-foot radius though, will spread the word far and wide. It's then, and only then, you wish you had bought the TT. JS

''You really can see why so many folks have been sucked into buying the BMW'

Specification