The Audi RS 6 is excessive in all the best ways
The Audi RS 6 is excessive in all the best ways
6:28

The Audi RS 6 is excessive in all the best ways

Auto Tech
I want to talk about excess. How much is too much especially when it comes to cars, namely in this case estate cars? This is the brand spanking new Audi RS 6. It's the third generation RS 6 which means it's the fastest ever made because of that is how these things work. The first 2 RennSport 6's were powerhouses. The first came with a biturbo 4.2-liter V8 while the 2nd shares a V10 with a Lamborghini Gallardo albeit with 2 turbos and 571 brake horsepower. An Audi with RS on its rump means that it's the fastest best-handling car that Audi can make of its type. RS cars look at the likes of BMW's M cars, Mercedes AMG models in the same way a cat looks at its owner. Returning to excess this RS 6 has 553 brake horsepower and it pushes out 516 pound-foot of torque. If you take the right options box its top speed will be 189 miles an hour while naught to 62 comes from rest in just 3.9 seconds. That makes it faster than a Porsche 911. How it makes it faster than most things on the road, those numbers though got into a bit of trouble when it was unveiled in 2012. British newspaper the Daily Mail wrote to story on it highlighting its epic pace. It has so much go that the national newspaper saw fit to make it a proper news story outside of anything remotely car focused. It managed to offend a newspaper. When you think about giving a car like this, a family estate, that much power means it's absolutely ridiculous. I mean 553 brake horsepower is more power than any car in the Maserati lineup. More power than you get in an Aston Martin V12 Vantage Roadster. It's more power than you get in a Nissan GTR. I mean a GTR. That big number incidentally comes from a 4-liter twin turbo V8, the same V8 that you'll find in a V8 Bentley Continental GT which means that it makes one hell of a noise. What power like this feel like in an estate car? Well, I won't lie. It's absolutely intoxicating. It's just-- oh, it's really something else. Just put your foot down then boom. You're at the horizon and you repeat that day in day out. It's simply odd. It's addictive is what it is and the V8 noise is simply beautiful, but that does come with a little bit of a caveat because it only really comes on song just as you reach the speed limits then you have to stop because you tend to reach the speed limit quite quickly. Kind of annoying because what I really want is to hear it all the time rather than get a little bit of a nip slip. I want the full show, but I think you can remedy that with the optional sports exhaust. However, this does beg the question, will you ever actually use all of it? Will you ever get to 62 in 3.9 at least in a regular basis and of course the answer is no. But you will win every set of traffic light drag races against what is widely known as the fastest vehicle in the world, the white van, and you will do it every time because the Quattro 4-wheel drive system, each driven wheel has 140 horsepower to deal with so it doesn't get overwhelmed and it just goes. I really can't express just how much traction this thing really has. It's just brilliant. Audi itself has admitted that the RS 6 isn't designed for British roads. This is designed for the autobahn for going to work on the motorway as quickly as humanly possible which does mean it's one flaw and it is as far as I'm concerned only one flaw. Its steering is a little bit numb and lots of people have said it's not well the ending stuff. It's not disastrously bad. It's not the worst thing in the world at all. It's just not as engaging as say its rivals. The question is gonna be asked this car time and time again is, is it better than an M5? Is it better than the E63 AMG? Is it as engaging to drive? Not really. Is it as lively? Is it as leary? No and as far as I'm concerned that's a positive because it means you won't get splat off the road if there's a little bit of water because you have that awesome 4-wheel drive system to keep you on the straight and narrow. Is it mind-blowingly fast? Yes. This has supercar pace and that's the one thing I really love about fast Audis is effortless power, it's effortless pace. You get this if like me you like life quite easy. Just power, get in, sit, plug yourself in, turn it on, put in into sport and go and then the world goes backwards. Everyone in the back starts to feel a bit nauseous because they're pinned to the back of their seats going oh God, daddy, please stop, and you're going no, I'm having too much fun. This is too awesome. That's what the RS 6 is for. Now the definition of excess is an amountable quantity be owned what is normal or sufficient, a surplus. So does the RS 6 fall under that definition? Is it beyond normal or sufficient? Let's look at this logically. 100 brake horsepower is all you really need to get to get the car moving and the base A6 comes with 177 brake horsepower. It will get you to 62 in around 8-ish seconds and it will happily crack 100 miles an hour where legal whereas the RS 6 it's clearly excessive. It'll crack the national speed limit twice over with room to spare and keep pace with the Ferrari. The way to think of it though is think of the RS 6 as you would your massive dream house. You don't need 7 bedrooms. You don't need all the extra space. The thing is though when you have your massive house, even though you probably never use the third spare room, it's nice to know that if you need it that it's there. Now the one thing the definition of excess didn't make clear was whether it was a good or a bad thing. And you know what? The RS 6 is excessive needlessly so and that is in no way a negative.

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