Stasis: Audi tuning to the extreme
Tuning company Stasis makes Audis go very, very quickly indeed. Its story starts in the 90's, with a couple of guys and a broken Audi.
There are not many people on Earth who'd turn down a fast Audi. They have the look, the prestige and, of course, the power. The chaps at Stasis also love fast Audis; and they also like to make them go much faster.
Its story begins in the US in 1999 when two guys had a broken Audi and some spare time. They fixed up the car and raced it. Since then, Stasis has been creating custom parts for Audi's vehicles ever since.
Stasis' work doesn't simply involve retuning an ECU and hoping for the best. No, it's far deeper than that. Stasis wants to get the fullest potential out of vehicles that come their way. The base product that comes to them is, unsurprisingly, over engineered to avoid warranty issues. Stasis finds where the gaps in a vehicle's potential are and exploits them.
To do something like this you need the right parts -- Stasis researches each vehicle to see what could be changed, improved and fettled. Then it's tested until it can give no more, so that when it goes on sale it's pretty much on the money.
With the S5, Stasis saw potential. Power was added, better brakes, suspension tweaks and a whole host of modifications were made not only to make it more powerful, but to make it handle far better than before. The stock S5 will hit 62 mph from rest in 4.9 seconds. The Stasis S5 will manage it in 3.8.
Audi's Q5, with a 2.0-litre turbo engine, hasn't escaped Stasis tinkering either. Its power has been upped from 220 bhp to 320, 0-62 mph is down nearly 2.0 seconds to 5.3. For a car with the aerodynamic qualities of a hippo, that's quite impressive.
Like many petrolheads, Stasis enjoys seeing those four rings on the bonnet of a car. It just likes them a bit faster, is all.