If you haven’t had a chance to test drive the new Audi RS6 Avant, please have a look at this test drive report.
Hopping inside, we depress the RS 6’s console-mounted starter button. The bi-turbo V10 fires up and comes to a quiet idle ever-so-subtly more gutteral than that of the S6. Rolling at a slow pace to leave the track and first sample the car on nearby roads, the sound is again not far from the S6. Out on the highway though, the differences are clear and present. Under healthy throttle, the call is not at at all like the V10 in the more pedestrian S-version. You would perhaps expect that given the RS 6’s biturbo mill, but our first run through the gears makes it immediately apparent that Audi engineers spent plenty of time on exhaust note. Where the S6 sounds throaty and deep – almost NASCAR like, the RS 6 sounds screaming mad as revs pile on, then dials out as the transmission shifts cogs for the briefest of moments, paired with a gutteral “bwap” as the engine takes to the lower rev count, only to begin the scream all over again. It’s intoxicating.“I love this car,” said the Volkswagen Group’s and Audi AG’s engine guru with board level position Wolfgang Hatz, before launching into an audible impression of the RS 6 under full throttle. “Grrrrrr, bwap, grrrr, bwap.” He’s admittedly proud – something even more significant when you consider this is the development mind behind such great engines as the 2.3-liter 4-cylinder in the first-generation M3, the 3.6-liter boxer in the Porsche 964 RS and the R8’s own high-revving 4.2-liter mill.