Audi RS6 Avant review

This, kids, is what used to pass for an outrageous fast four-door. Before the Tesla Plaids, Taycan Turbo GTs and Lucid Air Sapphires of the new world scrambled our collective ideas of what constituted an idiotically quick, understated family car, there was this.

The 2008, ‘C6’ generation Audi RS6 Avant. Forget Godzilla, sod Kong. This was king of the monsters.

What made it so ridiculous?

Audi’s hilarious, pathetic need to one-up its sworn enemies. See, this was by no means the only ‘idiotically quick, understated family car’ that would relieve you of around £70,000 back in 2008. BMW offered the loopy M5 Touring – the E61-gen model packing an 8,000rpm, 503bhp V10.

Mercedes was at it too. Its effort, the E63 AMG, stuffed your dad’s golf express with a 6.2-litre V8 snarling out 514bhp. Audi’s S6 – complete with a naturally aspirated V10 – appeared to have brought a knotted tea-towel to a gun-fight.

Two turbos later, we got this. A four-wheel drive executive wagon with an automatic gearbox, a reversing camera, leather seats, and 572bhp. Were it not for the 155mph limiter, the RS6 would breach 200mph.

What was the reaction at the time?

There was a sense of ‘…really?’ about the RS6. Partly because its twin-turbo V8 predecessor – yeah, the really handsome one out of Layer Cake – had been a let-down. A modern reincarnation of a V2 rocket, it was fast, very expensive, with a rubbish sense of direction. Sure, Audi’s Quattro GmbH skunkworks had since cooked the fabulous R8 and sensational RS4, but there was still a sense of ‘isn’t this sort of thing better left to the M Division?’

Secondly, the second-gen RS6 arrived in the middle of a global financial crisis that was laying waste to interesting, fast and thirsty cars. Into this chaos, Audi parachuted a 2,025kg luxury uber-wagon which slurped petrol at a rate of 20mpg (best-case scenario) and cost £10,000 more than its rivals.

Yes, a kerbweight of just beyond two tonnes and a price tag north of £70k doesn’t seem that silly here in the 2020s. Because, like with horsepower and 0-60 times, our minds have been addled by EV-flation. Wind the clock back almost two decades and this car seemed as out of step with the times as a Cybertruck.

Only… a LOT more subtle.

Too right. These were the last days of the German Q-cars, when E63s and RS6s could, with a wave of the de-badging wand, genuinely be mixed up with your bank manager’s dentist’s 2.0 TDI.

RS6s were distinguished by the honeycomb grille mesh, squared-off front bumper intakes, solid-topped ur-Quattro wheelarch blisters and oval tailpipes, but even the 20in five-spoke wheels could be optioned on other A6s or Q7s. It’s a world away from the ‘look how much money I must’ve cost’ shoutiness of today’s glowering widebody RS6. We miss it.

But these days, surely it’s a conspicuous bargain?

The C6-era RS6 is firmly into its nadir era of temptingly cheap to buy, but horribly pricey to run. Prices for sub-100k mile UK cars start at around £15,000. Given it still looks fresh, offers DAB radio and Bluetooth, and enough oomph to wipe the smile off a Model 3 driver’s face, you’d be far from alone in thinking the V10 RS6 is now the bargain of the century.

But wow, you need pockets deeper than the RS6’s boot to keep one on the road. It chews through fuel, then enjoys a side dish of pricey tyres and brake pads. High insurance group? Check. Highest road tax band? Yep. You have been warned.

The V10 RS6 is sort of a meme for fast Audis. Love that all-weather, all-occasion thrust? It’s here in barrelfuls. Hate the nose-heavy, one-dimensional handling, sludgy steering and occasionally brittle ride? Yep, it’s got all that too. It’s an insane engineering achievement and actually rather futile all at the same time… but we have a big soft spot for this car.

It hails from a time – maybe the last time – when ordinary family cars could be hit with the superhero gamma ray and morphed into truly bonkers creations, without having to shoehorn in sops to hybrid this and active safety that. It’s a proper VW Group colossus kinda car, from the era that gave us the Veyron, the Porsche GT2 RS, the Phaeton W12, Q7 V12 and the Lamborghini Reventon. Overkill machines no-one needed, but everyone enjoyed.

The C7-gen car that replaced this RS6 was a much better all-rounder. Sharper to drive yet more compliant on shoddy roads, and (ironically, given how hard Audi’s engineers sweated to squeeze a V10 into this car) actually torquier, with two fewer cylinders. It used a little less fuel, sounded more eventful, and sold in greater numbers.

But if there’s no replacement for displacement and the running costs don’t leave you in a quivering puddle of woe, you can woofle around in this king of the monsters bathing in the smug satisfaction there will quite simply never be a car like it ever again. This much engine, wrapped up in something so naughtily discreet.