Unless it's just me, I like to think inside all car enthusiasts resides a warped Dewey Decimal System that takes every classification of car and ranks them in order of personal preference. It starts with hot hatches, graduates to sports cars, dances back and forth between 911s before debating the merits of the ultimate supercars.

Or perhaps you’re more intimate with one particular brand, thus naturally gravitating towards its products because you like what the company stands for, or maybe what it says about you. That company for me is BMW. Well, specifically the BMW of the turn of the century we all mourn the loss of. So that’s why, with some trepidation am I’m going to stick my neck out and say I might actually prefer Audi’s B7 RS 4 to the “Greatest Of All Time” supersaloon, the E39 M5.

Please resist the temptation to head for the nearest bin with this publication and perform a cleansing burning ritual. Just hear me out for a second - in the real world, where we spend 99% of our time, I’d argue the B7 RS4 is actually the superior driver’s car. It has nicer steering, a sweeter gearbox, more powerful brakes, an equally special engine, better seats and on account of being a good chunk lighter, is more agile. Both cars are equally fast, equally thirsty, equally practical, hewn from granite and the Audi is almost as comfortable.

You might interject and suggest I’m blurring the lines between sports saloon and super saloon? Well I’d first counter by saying the B7 is the best part of a decade younger, and when you factor in the inevitable generational growth of cars, their dimensions aren’t too dissimilar. Counter argument number two is to highlight that in the late 90s and early 2000s, many hot hatches went toe-to-toe based on power outputs and outright performance rather than segment rankings. I give you the supermini-sized Clio 182 versus the VW Golf rivalling, Honda Civic Type-R EP3. The M5 has 400 bhp and 368 lb/ft. The RS 4 has 414 bhp and 317 lb/ft. Both cars will dip below five seconds in a sprint to sixty, and will pass one-hundred in around eleven.

That of course, brings us to the thorny issue of the E90 M3, the natural rival to the B7 and a car that always wins the plaudits in a head to head comparison. I’d take an E92 M3 coupe over an RS 4. Surely therefore, I’d also take the E90 saloon? After all, it might even be better looking than the coupe, and it's much rarer giving it an X factor. Somehow, I’m not so sure. I think the extra doors alter the goalposts, tipping the list of desired attributes closer to those of the Audi. In my warped logic, a saloon needs a greater bandwidth due to the required additional practicality.

A saloon isn’t about compromises, it is likely an only car, rather than something for the weekend. This is where the RS 4s ace/trump card of being four-wheel-drive comes in. Given how notoriously crap the weather is in the United Kingdom, the RS 4 will offer so many more opportunities to exploit that V8. And it has more torque, making it more satisfying when you’re not chasing the horizon. The B7 RS 4 is a truly wonderful real world motorcar, with exactly the right amount of power for having fun on the roads of our crowded island.

So why isn’t the Audi mounted on a marble pedestal the way the E39 M5 is? Maybe it’s the way the M5 looks. Maybe it’s because of how much the BMW moved the goalposts on in the supersaloon sector and utterly decimated the competition, leaving them trailing in its wake. The B7 RS 4 had the minor misfortune of being a member of a great triumvirate of high-performance sports saloons alongside the C 63 AMG and E90 M3. The Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic of the car universe if you will. You have to feel for the brilliant Lexus ISF playing the Andy Murray role.

I digress. Perhaps I’ve convinced you. Maybe you’re on your way to look up a B7 saloon or Avant in the classifieds. Well, I’m about to completely shoot myself in the foot, because the pricing lines are blurring between the appreciating B7 and the depreciating Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio. A car that is automatic only and turbocharged, thus cannot hold a candle to any of the cars previously mentioned in the sonic or throttle response department. And to top it off, the Quadrifoglio’s 503 horsepower is channelled through the rear wheels only.

Yet I’d have one in a heartbeat over the Audi. Like I said, the warped logic of the car enthusiast. Or maybe it’s just me after all.