Audi RS6 Avant

This is the most powerful car that Audi makes. It has 412kW and 700Nm. That makes it ballsier even than the halo R8 V10 Plus. It is a grand tourer, a straight-line mauler built for inhaling great distances in imperious comfort.

The RS6 is all about that engine. The wagon’s subtle musculature belongs to a Q-car, despite those colossal flared nostrils, but any pretensions are stripped away when you plant your foot. It’s an almighty shove in the kidneys at any speed below 200km/h, and it sounds like hearing Krakatoa through headphones.

The twin-turbo V8 is adaptable, reducing itself to four cylinders when cruising, allowing a healthy economy rate of 9.8L/100km, but at full noise it’s a roaring mathematical beast. It’s also faster to 100km/h than the last model (and the Lamborghini Gallardo, for that matter) with a 0-100km/h time of just 3.9 seconds.

The only remaining oddity is the three available top speeds: 250km/h, which is standard; 280km/h if you plump for that Dynamic Package; and the ‘full German’ limit of 305km/h, available if you tick a $20k carbon-fibre ceramic brake option box on top.

If the R8, Audi’s halo car, is a precision scalpel in Ingolstadt’s cutlery drawer, the Avant is a harpoon: a great big two-tonne autobahn masher. With most cars, the outback horizon is a white whale, but the RS6 fires you at it and reels it in.

Charles Hong

Super Car Blog Australia

image source:http://www.themotorreport.com.au/content/image/2/0/2014_audi_rs_6_avant_overseas_01-1205.jpg