Audi’s rebooted RS6
The RS6, long awesome but numb like an arm you slept on, is back; more handsome and now with actual driver appeal
About an hour north of LA is a canyon road with twists, hairpins and sheer-sided drops that feel like they’ve been lifted straight out of the Alps. Except it’s boiling hot and there’s an In-N-Out Burger at the end. It’s the current benchmark driving road.
There are a few flowing sections but it’s mostly tight, its closely-stacked turns making the speed limit aspirational. Jeopardy is on hand in the form of a yawning drop just the other side of the barrier. Hot hatch territory, really.
A white line down the middle means it’s also the perfect test route for the wider-than-ever Audi RS6, which is still a kind of hot hatch, if you’re prepared to stretch a point – fast and practical with a confidence-inspiring chassis. We like that formula in the UK and we like the RS6; only the Germans buy more.
Audi’s fastest estate has always been a car you drive like a hot hatch, too – it doesn’t require finesse and delicacy like its pretend-sports-car rivals the BMW M5 and Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo. This is a car with monumental grip that feels most at home with its outside tyres being leant on harder than Bill Withers.
Now it promises driver involvement, without compromising the consistent grip expected by fast Audi drivers who just want to chuck it in. The way this is achieved in a car weighing north of two tonnes is, inevitably, via some crafty tech.
Heroic levels of turn-in grip come from a variable rack and RS-tuned rear diff, which help point both axles where you want them. Huge 22-inch wheels and quattro all-wheel drive – proper quattro too, with a mechanical centre diff – deliver the mid-corner stick, while rear-wheel steering borrowed from the standard A6 tidies things up on the exit. The quicker you go the more you feel the benefit; the car feels substantially more agile than before.
None of this is particularly new – and neither is the pace on offer. The new car is three-tenths quicker to 62mph but that’s just the difference between very fast and very, very fast. The gearbox has been tweaked to shift quicker than before but is still a bit sleepy (it’s not a dualclutcher), and the throttle response is hardly sharp. Doesn’t matter, though – there’s so much torque, so low, you rarely need to shift down.
What really sets this generation of RS6 apart is the chassis – particularly on the RS Sport Suspension Plus (steel springs, as opposed to the standard air set-up) with Dynamic Ride Control (diagonally linked dampers). Bodyroll is more or less eliminated, as are dive and squat, and there are a range of drive modes, from comfortableenough to incredibly tied down. Too bobbly for UK roads? Potentially, but we’d still go all-in. Top-spec Vorsprung cars come with steel springs and DRC as standard; £1300 adds them to your standard or Carbon Black car.
Previous generations of RS6 were largely one-dimensional – capable, but a tool you used rather than a car you connected with. This is much more interactive at the limit, refusing to blast into howling understeer, and is much more exciting as a result. Yet it’s just as good at being an A6 Avant when that’s what you need.
First verdict
It might be marginally heavier and slower than rivals but it’s still the One Car to Rule Them All. Always capable – now it’s fun too. The ultimate daily
This is much more interactive at the limit, refusing to blast into howling understeer