Car: Audi RS6
Prices: £76,160-£77,730 – on the road
Insurance Group: 20
Emissions: 331-333g/km
Performance: Max Speed 155mph / 0-60mph 4.6s
Fuel Consumption: [Avant] (urban) 13.8mpg / (extra urban) 27.4mpg / (combined) 20.2mpg
Safety: Twin front & side airbags / ABS / ESP
Dimensions: [Avant] Length/Width/Heightmm 4730/1860/1460
THE FOUR RINGS OF POWER…
Our Rating: 7.9 / 10
If power corrupts, the Audi RS6 is definitely the shadiest offering to emerge from the German marquee so far. Steve Walker checks out its mettle…
Executive saloons and estates don’t come any quicker and very few cars of any kind do full stop. The Audi RS6 uses the VW Group’s 5.0-litre V10 as seen in the Lamborghini Gallardo and bolts on a pair of turbochargers. The result is 572bhp, 0-60mph in 4.6 seconds, 0-124mph in 14.9s and, in the estate version, one queasy looking Labrador.
One-upmanship, the car industry is awash with it and car enthusiasts wouldn’t have it any other way. If the leading manufacturers were any less hell-bent on outdoing their rivals at every opportunity, cars like the Audi RS6 would simply never have been dragged into being. There are those who will greet news of this 572bhp super saloon or estate with abject horror and most right-minded observers will at least briefly entertain the possibility that Audi may have gone a shade too far this time but you have to admire the firm’s commitment.
For car nuts the world over, the only thing more exciting than the prospect of climbing into an RS6, firing up the V10 biturbo engine then administering the full beans will be the thought of what BMW and Mercedes will do to top it. Rest assured, as soon as news of the RS6 broke, the machinations of the powers that be in Munich and Stuttgart will have been directed along similar lines.
The previous generation RS6 was a bit of an animal. The car was a devastating cross-country tool with an engine note like a squadron of bombers overhead and stylistic aggression that made other road users feel like abandoning their cars and sprinting for the nearest Anderson shelter. That car had 429bhp but this RS6 has a different group of rivals to battle so Audi has furnished it with the capabilities on another level. BMW’s 507bhp M5, the first in the illustrious line to be offered to UK buyers in Touring estate form, and the 503bhp Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG are the RS6’s primary targets and taken in isolation, its 572bhp motor makes a convincing case for air-superiority.
The engine in question is the same V10 that was already found in star cars like the Lamborghini Gallardo and Audi’s S8 flagship. It’s also hotly tipped to make an appearance in the firm’s R8 supercar. The S6, the 429bhp model demoted to the role of understudy by the RS6’s arrival, uses a version of the unit too but like these others, its engine is normally-aspirated. In the RS6, the thunderous V10 uses turbocharging to achieve its phenomenal power output and, just for good measure, Audi have thrown in a pair of them. This is the most powerful car Audi has ever built. Oh and in Avant form, it has up to 1,660 litres of luggage space.
The 572bhp courses through the quattro all-wheel-drive transmission at 6,250rpm and just as astonishingly, the 650Nm maximum torque is available from 1,500rpm all the way up to 6,250rpm. If you spot an RS6 on the road and fancy giving it a run for its money away from a set of traffic lights, be warned. The car will pass the 62mph barrier from a standing start in 4.6s. To live with that kind of punch, you’ll need to be at the wheel of something like a Ferrari F430 or a Porsche 911 GT3 RS. Anything from an Aston Martin DB9 down need not apply.
To underline the supercar-slaying performance of the RS6 – this is a full-size executive saloon or estate car remember – it can reach 124mph in 14.9s. If the 155mph electronic limiter wasn’t installed, most drivers would run out of race track and nerve well before the RS6 ran out of steam. The twin turbochargers and a series of component modifications are responsible for the power boost enjoyed by the RS6. The gears are shifted through steering wheel paddle shifters connected to a six speed automatic gearbox and an upgraded guattro 4x4 system has the unenviable task of putting all that power down onto the road.
The RS6 hints at its fearsome capabilities via a reworked exterior. The rear view that rivals may be forced to get used to is dominated by two huge oval exhausts set into each end of a diffu
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