Audi RS5 "With Lamborghini Engine" Races Police Helicopter, Almost Wins

“I am satisfied that you were the leader of the group.

“You have an appalling record. This was an atrocious piece of dangerous driving.

“You drove through suburban streets of Wolverhampton at speeds which meant the police car could not keep up.

“You were driving on the wrong side of the road.

“You then got on the motorway and there was a moment in that pursuit that your intention was to outrun the police helicopter.”

So said the English court in sentencing Ben Westwood to nine years in prison. His offense, according to an article by London’s Daily Mirror, was in attempting to steal 21,000 pounds sterling from an ATM and then leading the cops on a high-speed chase.

His vehicle of choice was an Audi RS5, which was white when he’d stolen it. Modified with a “Lamborghini engine” and a “special racing brake”, the car was repainted black after the police became aware it was being used in the robberies.

It’s likely that the whole “Lamborghini engine” business comes from a misunderstanding: the outgoing Audi S6 and S8 had a variant of the Lamborghini Gallardo’s V10. That engine is found, with different accessories, in the Audi R8 5.2 as well. Nor would a special engine be needed to play drag race with a cop-chopper; the RS5 can knock on the door of 174mph even with the factory limiter in place.

Mr. Westwood will be forty-two years old when he comes out of prison, but if he can’t find any more work knocking over ATMs perhaps he can call up Gordon Ramsay, who was pinched doing 132mph in a 911 Turbo a decade or so ago, and whose license is reportedly always a violation or two away from complete revocation even now.