169,000 euros for an Audi?

I laughed. Then I drove it.

My step is lighter and happier today. I have a faint smile on my face and a pleasant melody in my head. I am happy partly because we filmed the fourth season of Clarkson’s Farm. But mostly because I am going to do something I have been wanting to do for a long time. I am going to write about a car that I love: the Audi RS 6 Avant performance.

By Jeremy Clarkson

I didn’t expect to like it because the last model wasn’t that good. It may have had awesome German electromagnetic actuators with phase-offset oscillations and could carry two Old English Sheepdogs at 190 miles per hour, but it was a bit boring. Maybe it was because of those electromagnetic actuators with the oscillation coils.

Before the new performance model arrived, I did a little research and I have to admit that I didn’t expect to like it very much. Yes, it has more turbochargers and a little less sound insulation in the bonnet, but the basic formula seemed to remain the same. It was just more expensive. Much more expensive. The car I was going to test cost around €157,000. With the extras it could go up to €169,000. Yes, €169,000. For an Audi.

The first car I crashed, 36 hours after I got my licence, was an Audi on the road from Tan Hill to Keld. My mother’s, to be exact. I remember her not worrying at all about the condition of the car afterwards. She would certainly have thought about it if it had cost her €169,000 or so.

Yes, I wouldn’t like the new RS 6, and even if I did, I would conclude that 169,000 euros for an Audi is an outrageous amount.

I have to say, though, that when it arrived at my house, it seemed to me to be in a beautiful color. Nardo gray, if you’re interested. And I really liked the wheels. There are some in my profession, like James May for example, who don’t like oversized rims. They say that a large wheel increases the weight of the unsprung mass and affects the ride comfort. But to me, wheels are like tractors or male genitalia. They can’t be “too big.” You can take the cheapest car in the world and if you put big tires on it, it will look a lot better. With big tires, even a Pontiac Aztek would be awesome.

Apparently Audi shares my view because to design the RS 6, what they apparently did was find the biggest tires they could, probably from Euclid, and then they designed the rest of the car around them. And to brag even more, my car had the even bigger optional wheels, measuring 22 inches in diameter and 10.5 inches wide.

This choice revealed a secret because of course James May is right. Wheels that big spoil the handling of the car. And Audi knows this. Apparently in this case the goal was style rather than high speed. I admire that because in a world that only moves at 9 miles per hour, it’s more important to have good style.

And it’s not just the wheels that work well. It’s the whole car. The angular grille of the car up front, the Matrix Churchill super-guns at the back, the flared wheel arches. It looks like it came from the future, although that wouldn’t be possible because under the hood it has the most magical thing: an engine. And not just any old engine. It’s a V8. Yes, it has some hybrid elements, but nothing that should concern us. It’s just a silent nod.

Now thanks to the removal of the soundproofing from the engine compartment, passengers can hear the sound of the engine and the fans and the fuel exploding, and these are all sounds that excite you. There are a lot of explosions in this car. It goes from 0 to 100 km per hour in 3.4 seconds and if you remove the speedometer it exceeds 320 km per hour. We’re talking 320 km per hour in an Audi. Maybe 169,000 euros is not a lot of money. You would pay twice as much to go that fast in a Ferrari. And you could only take one dog with you when driving.

And what happens when the road gets twisty? Thanks to all the German components, it has a lot of grip in the corners. The rear end grip is not going to break. That’s great. But in the corners and over potholes and on the highway, I still don’t think this car has the same finesse as a Mercedes or a BMW. But I’ll get to that now.

Similarly, it’s hard to say anything about the interior. The Audi is awesome and the sports seats were amazing. That’s another thing that can always improve a car. Big side bolsters on the seats and the Audi is huge.

Annoyances? One or two. The passenger-side seat belt slapping against the car and making a noise that means you have to stop and get a hitchiker with you to fill the passenger seat or stop and buckle up. That means all the precious time you gained by going fast around corners is now gone.

The worst part, though, is the brakes. If you even glance at the left pedal, the car stops as if a child has run in front of you. If you step on the pedal, you’ll understand what life was like in the last moments for the guy who jumped out of the Junkers Ju52 at the end of the movie Where Eagles Dare. One moment everything is fine and the next you’re a decal.

I’ve had the car for a week and I’d like to say I’ve gotten used to this particular sensitivity, but the truth is I haven’t. And it’s annoying because there are a lot of nice features in Audi’s last triumph in this market segment before it became an electrical wholesaler, Currys with windshield wipers.

I certainly think the RS makes sense for someone who has just had their third Range Rover stolen and is now wondering if they need the extra height in the car that will replace it. I once drove a Lancia Beta Coupé in the Kalahari and Botswana, so maybe in Surrey a low Audi with four wheels would do.

And when you look at it from that perspective, again the price doesn’t seem so high. Because, compared to a Range Rover, it seems like good value for money.

Photos Courtesy of www.audi-mediacenter.com