BEAST ROAM

WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU WANT 550 horsepower in an estate? What the hell will you do with a 550bhp estate? Valid questions, both, but then again why the heck not? Even with a hulking great V8 under that hulking great bonnet there’s nothing stopping you from taking the dog for a drive. The RS 6 Avant remains a very practical car for the wife to take the kids to school in. Or you can leave the wife, the kids, and the dog at home and proceed to demolish every road ever made. The expressway, the twisties slithering up a mountainside, a race track, a drag race; whether it is dry or wet, rough or smooth, gravel strewn or oil patched, the Audi RS 6 Avant ruthlessly decapitates every known bit of tarmac.

This particular car, I hate it. It is the reason my drag racing trophies don’t include an overall first. Many months ago I rocked up at a drag race armed with my Sparco gloves, an app on my phone to hone reaction times, and a German hotrod rocking a Race Start mode complete with a complicated launch control sequence and a big ol' chequered flag on the display. And I proceeded to get pasted by this car that doesn’t even have launch control! By a driver who had useless reaction times. He just stepped on it and went. Forget me, the Audi was so quick the reigning champ was rattled into making a jump start.

This car is naughty. It says 250kmph limited on the spec sheet yet we filmed it doing 286kmph before we ran out of road. It is mental. Under 4 seconds to 100kmph. Quattro-enabled grip that launches so hard a beautiful imprint of your skull is left in the headrest. So much torque there's no manual gearbox or even a twin-clutch auto in Audi's parts bin can handle it. And all this on a near-5 metre long estate car, a genre that is supposed to be all about practicality and common sense.

I love this car! It’s all the car I’d ever want or need. It’s the coolest thing you could own. It looks cool as