Car review: Audi RS6; spec and performance

The numbers on this one are, quite frankly, ridiculous… Eight cylinders, four litres, two turbos, a stonking 621 bhp and a price tag of £140,000. That’s borderline supercar territory, right? Nah. It’s a practical family estate. Yep. It’s time I finally got behind the wheel of the (quite frankly) legendary Audi RS6.

Let’s deal with the performance straight away, shall we? That’s more power than a Ferrari Roma or a McLaren GT, but with three extra seats, permanent four-wheel drive that will look after you and a masive boot – this thing swallowed full sized mountain bikes and was looking for seconds…

Audi RS6. (Image: Audi) From the second you hit the starter, the sound is distinctive; promising, but understated, as if you don’t need to shout about the fact that it’s an RS6 – if you know, you know. But hit the small button on the steering wheel marked with the RS logo, and the noise changes. Quite a lot. Then you select drive and your right foot gets heavy and you find a very expensive (and enjoyable) way of turning petrol into a lot of noise and blistering acceleration.

Near-perfect balance, and four-wheel drive means that it holds the road and does what you tell it and it gets you to the speed limit really quite quickly. If you hit the autobahns in Germany, the engine would govern you at 176mph – and rumour has it that without this, it would pass 200mph. So it moves; and with the carbon ceramic brakes fitted to this test car – it stops too and does that equally as fast. I’ve genuinely never felt braking like it.

But is it practical? Let’s ignore the fuel economy, other than to acknowledge you’ll be lucky to get much more than 20mpg if you’re being frugal, but you don’t buy an RS6 to save the pennies at the pumps. Fuel aside, practicality is incredible. The rear seats are spacious, and as I said earlier, the boot is immense. Front passenger and driver space is also very generous, and with all-round parking sensors and cameras, manoeuvring is not that hard either, considering the size of the car.

Audi RS6. (Image: Audi) On to the technology, and as you would expect being a performance Audi, the tech is more than up to the job of keeping you informed and entertained. A great stereo and nav system, with Apple CarPlay should you prefer that, and Audi’s fantastic virtual cockpit means you can choose from a range of options for the display in front of you, and the head’s up display is also very clear, changing format depending on drive mode to give you the most pertinent information to your current mood.

Oh, and with Audi’s night vision assist, the dash becomes a night vision camera which is simply incredible and picks up people, cars, animals – any heat sources – long before you might spot them in the (also impressive) headlights.

If (when) I win the Euromillions, I have no doubt that the RS6 will be my practical car of choice – big enough to handle anything, fun enough to be enjoyable regardless of the job in hand.

And oh my god, that noise…

Tech & Spec

Model: Audi RS6

Model on test: Carbon Vorsprung Tiptronic

Base price: £126,970

Price on test: £140,000

Engine: 4.0 litre V8

Power: 621bhp

Torque: 850Nm

Max speed: 176mph (electronically governed)

0-62mph: 3.4 seconds

Emissions: 285g/km