Audi RS6 Avant: Cavernous, classy, committed and quick

Audi’s defining current model, the RS6 Avant is what the Ingolstadt maker does best, and is at the same time spectacularly swift, spacious and sophisticated.

The latest in a line of super estates since the 1994 RS2 Avant and 1983 200 Quattro Avant, which married the iconic original rally bred Quattro sports car’s turbocharged engine and four-wheel drive to a practical and elegant executive estate, this is a segment where Audi truly excels.

Audi may have sportier, grander and more luxurious, high-tech and even quicker models, but none so clearly dominate their segment or capture Audi’s traditional combination of practicality, sophistication, sheer performance and somewhat leftfield brilliance. Supercar swift, impeccably luxurious and with huge hauling capacity, the RS6 Avant’s stubborn roadholding and a raft of high-tech passive and active safety systems, is an impeccably safe way to travel fast.

Dramatic and practical

An ostensible rival to hyper yuppie-mobile super saloons, the RS6 is defiantly and only available in the more practical family estate body style — or Avant in Audi-speak. Ever more sidelined by ubiquitous, unnecessarily tall and often dynamically compromised SUVs, the RS6’s estate body is, however, favoured by more dedicated motoring enthusiasts for offering the same practicality and but with the lower centre of gravity, handling ability and efficiency of a saloon car.

Dramatically assertive, the RS6’s design elements converge on its brutally charismatic and bold hexagonal honeycomb grille. Broad, tall and dominant, the RS6’s grille is the focal point of its fascia, with sharp low air splitter below, squinting browed headlights and vast lower side intakes with brushed aluminium gills to the side. Classy but muscular, with flourishes of brushed metal details, the RS6 features prominently sculpted bonnet ridges and chiselled side character lines.

With long arcing estate roofline and tailgate, sharply defined sills, subtly bulging wheelarches and vast asphalt gripping 285/30R21 footwear lending a sense of sculpted yet sophisticated and well-integrated solidity, the RS6 features a large rear air diffuse and big bore dual exhaust tips at the rear. Meanwhile, a level waistline provides good visibility and an airy ambiance. Revised for 2015 onwards, the RS6 receives mildly re-designed but sharper and cleaner LED headlights.

Relentless rocket

Powered by a twin-turbocharged 4-litre direct injection V8 engine with short intake gas flow path piping for swift low-end responsiveness and little by way of turbo-lag, both the RS6 Avant’s headline performance figures and real world abilities are devastatingly swift. With its engine slung just ahead of equal length front axles and a Quattro four-wheel drive system ostensibly delivering 60 per cent power rearwards, the RS6 launches off the line with brutal efficiency, effectively putting its enormous power to tarmac with no hesitation.

Rocketing off the line with no loss of traction in dry conditions — and one suspects very little if any in the wet either — the RS6 charges through the 0-100km/h benchmark in a supercar-rivalling 3.9 seconds. Developing 552BHP throughout a broad 5700-6600 peak and gut-wrenching 516lb/ft torque over a vast 1750-5500rpm mid-range, the RS6 can easily attain a nominally restricted 250km/h top speed, which can be optionally de-restricted to 305km/h. Nonetheless, it returns restrained 9.6l/100km combined fuel efficiency and 223g/km CO₂ emissions.

Fitted with traffic stop-and-go functionality and seamless automatic cylinder de-activation when cruising to achieve such efficiency from so powerful a 1,950kg car, the RS6 Avant’s various settings can, however, be tailored for sportier or more comfortable driving, including a more vocally growling and popping “dynamic” engine mode. Relentlessly bellowing and eager as it climbs from an abundant mid-range to an urgent top-end plateau, the RS6 overtakes with effortless ease and charges through wind resistance with indefatigably muscular intensity at speed.

Quattro commitment

With a responsive turbocharged engine putting out a broad and generous mid-range tidal wave of torque and slick and quick 8-speed automatic gearbox, the RS6 is ever versatile and ready to pounce. Using its individually adjustable drive settings, “dynamic” gearbox mode is best when using manually actuated paddle shifts, where cog-changes become finger-snap quick and concise. Also adjustable for “comfort” or “dynamic” mode are the RS6’s limited-slip rear differential, steering effort weighting and damper settings.

Driving all four wheels with a default 60 per cent rear bias that lends Audi’s big super estate a more agile dynamic and somewhat off sets its slightly nose-heavy engine layout, the RS6 is an all-weather high performance machine that can vary power distribution depending on prevailing conditions. Able to divert up to 85 per cent power rearwards or 70 per cent to the front, and left and right through its limited-slip rear differential, the RS6’s roadholding is phenomenal and fluently adapts to the situation at hand.

Relentlessly grippy, the RS6 seemingly straightens out a winding road and dispatches corners with utter contemptuous confidence. Pushed to its — albeit high — threshold, the RS6’s instinct is for slight progressive and easily controlled understeer, and if one come back on throttle far too hard out of a corner, it can playfully nudge its rear out, but that only seems to help it slice through bends better as its four driven wheels adjust, reallocate power, find traction and send it blasting even more confidently through a tightened cornering line.

Confidence and comfort

Assailing snaking hill climbs and winding switchbacks with the utter confidence, relentless commitment and tenacity of a roller coaster riding on rails, the RS6 is, however, also a more agile car than its’ size, weight and grip would suggest. In addition to varying power distribution, it also features a torque vectoring system that brakes the inside wheel through tight corners, and allows it to turn and tuck into a bend with crisp and tidy reflexes. 

A natural Autobahn cruncher, the RS6 rides with steely resolve and reassuring, unruffled stability at high speed and is tidily buttoned down on sudden rebound. Steering is meaty, quick, precise and direct, and brakes highly resilient and effective. Riding on multilink air damped suspension, the RS6 is best in adaptive default mode, where it firms up for corners and softens on straights. In “dynamic” mode, it is more focused with tighter cornering body control, but rides slightly busier on straights.

Highly refined on road, the RS6 even features sophisticated sound cancellation and acoustic window lamination as of 2015, along with an upgraded infotainment system with faster processing and 4G mobile Wi-Fi connectivity. Spaciously accommodating five passengers or up to 1,680 litres luggage depending on seat configuration, the RS6 is classy and intuitive inside, with superb seating support, position and versatility, user-friendly infotainment system.

Classy and well-appointed, it also features suede roof-lining, quilted leather seats, carbon-fibres, metal accents, luxurious textures and is available with broad ranging and sophisticated semi-automated driver-assistance systems.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 4-litre, twin-turbo, in-line V8 cylinders

Bore x stroke: 84.5 x 89mm

Compression ratio: 10.1:1

Valve-train: 32-valve, DOHC, direct injection

Gearbox: 8-speed automatic, four-wheel drive, limited-slip rear-differential

Power distribution, F/R: 40 per cent/60 per cent

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 552 (560) [412] @5700-6600rpm

Specific power: 138.2BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 283BHP/tonne

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 516 (700) @1750-5500rpm

Specific torque: 175.3Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 359Nm/ton

0-100km/h: 3.9 seconds

Top speed, restricted/de-restricted: 250/305km/h

Fuel consumption, urban/extra-urban/combined: 13.4/7.4/9.6 litres/100km 

CO2 emissions, combined: 223g/km

Fuel capacity: 75 litres

Length: 4979mm

Width: 1936mm

Height: 1461mm

Wheelbase: 2915mm

Track, F/R: 1662/1663mm

Overhangs, F/R: 939/1125mm

Headroom, F/R: 1046/985mm

Luggage volume, min/max: 565/1,680 litres

Unladen weight: 1,950kg

Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion

Turning Circle: 11.9 metres

Suspension: Multi-link, adaptive air dampers

Brakes: Ventilated & perforated discs

Tyres: 285/30R21 (optional)