2024 Audi RS 6 Avant Performance Review: Long Roof, Long Fun
The verdict: Bigger turbos mean more power for 2024, with Audi’s fast RS wagon now making 621 horsepower and 627 pounds-feet of torque. In concert with the car’s full suite of performance goodies and smoldering good looks, it makes for one hell of a do-anything daily driver.
Versus the competition: Come 2025, it’s going to feel like we Yanks are in an alternate timeline, with access to the Audi RS 6 Avant, BMW M5 Touring and potentially a next-gen Mercedes-AMG E63 wagon. We’ll have to drive the other wagons to see how the Audi stacks up, but it’s likely just as capable as its German rivals.
Maybe it’s just the mortality spiral I’m locked in at the moment, but change is scary these days: As a millennial, I’m watching my generation gradually lose our grip on the reins of culture as we begin our slow slip into irrelevancy. But even scarier than that is how much the automotive industry has changed since I entered this game a decade ago: The inexorable influx of downsizing, hybridization and, uh, crossoverification has made technically advanced cars like the 2024 Audi RS 6 Avant feel rather old school.
Related: Max Power: 2025 Audi RS Q8 Performance Packs Brand’s Most Powerful Gas Engine Ever
Modern Performance? It’s Complicated
It’s a weird take, for sure. There’s nothing actually outdated about the RS 6’s tech, which includes triple interior displays backed by Audi’s excellent MMI infotainment architecture, nor is there anything overtly out of spec with its styling, performance or feature set. On the contrary, the RS 6 Avant is (predictably) one of the sweeter sleds I’ve had the privilege of driving in quite a while.
Perhaps I’m not suffering from fear of change so much as simply being in the throes of a hybrid hangover. To be clear, I’m not against hybridization (or electrification, for that matter), but it does seem like we’re losing simplicity — or maybe just the illusion of simplicity — in its undertow.
Take the Mercedes-AMG C63: The last generation (2015-23) was an incredibly complex vehicle, packing a nine-stage traction control function, adaptive chassis, customizable control dial with a mini display screen on the steering wheel, and all of the other bangs, bobs and whistles you’d expect of a high-dollar, high-performance sedan. Yet even draped in all this digi-jewelry, Mercedes’ 503-horsepower, twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8 and rear-wheel-drive configuration met expectations for both the era and the breed, with neat tech like “hot-vee” turbocharging and a “multiclutch” nine-speed transmission. Then consider the 2024 Mercedes-AMG C63 S E Performance, where a hybridized 2.0-liter four-cylinder takes over for the V-8, with a rear-mounted electric motor boosting output to a stunning 671 hp and 752 pounds-feet of torque. The car is now all-wheel drive and incorporates an electric turbocharger, plug-in hybrid capability and a dizzying array of configurable digital driver-assist systems.
It’s all so … labyrinthian. So too is the forthcoming E63, which purportedly ditches the V-8 for an inline-six of similar hybridization persuasion. The new 2025 Porsche 911 GTS is hybridized for the first time in history, now heavier and more complex with a motor-driven turbocharger and an additional electric motor juicing the rear wheels. Power is up, but the manual is out; Porsche says the complex new drivetrain doesn’t play nice with three pedals.
Audi’s Antidote (for Now)
Bringing it back to Audi, we recently learned that the gas-powered A6 is going away, supplanted by a new A6 Sportback e-Tron. If you want a mid-size gas-powered three-boxer from Audi, your only remaining option is the forthcoming next-gen A7. All the even-numbered models are shifting to battery-fed power, while the “odds,” like the A5 and A7, still drink the oil industry’s finest.
This sweeping transition seems (“seems” being the key word here) accelerated and sudden despite having come over nearly a decade of gradual electrification. Which leads me back to the wonderful, wild and weirdly analog 2024 Audi RS 6 Avant.
All right, it’s hardly analog, but the RS 6’s powertrain is about as far as you can get from an e-Tron in 2024. As it has been since its stateside debut for 2021, a twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8 is this car’s roaring heart, mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission and hooked up to the marque’s signature Quattro AWD system.
Outside of Audi’s near-ubiquitous 48-volt mild-hybrid system, there are no electric motors, batteries, plugs or sockets in sight. Is that a good thing? Depends on both your point of view and your priorities, but for now, I tend to like my cars sans electricity. I’m sure I’ll own an EV someday — by force — and be happy as a clam, but I fear our charging infrastructure just isn’t ready yet.
(More) Advanced Avant
That’s for later. What’s now is the delicious 2024 RS 6 Avant, fresh from a mild update that has miraculously added more power and torque. Bigger turbos and tweaked engine management translate to 621 hp and 627 pounds-feet of torque, along with a new Performance trim designation. (No vanilla RS 6 Avant is offered in the U.S. for 2024.) That engine is up 30 hp and 37 pounds-feet over the prior car, cutting 0.2 second off Audi’s reported 0-60 mph scuttle, which now takes a zesty 3.3 seconds. If you live near the autobahn, an abandoned airfield or are just feeling a little dangerous, the RS 6 Avant’s top speed is limited to 155 mph, or 174 mph if you cop the new Bronze edition.
But wait: There’s less! A new wheelset, reduced sound insulation and a lighter center differential combine to snip around 60 pounds from the car’s total mass, bringing its curb weight down to … 4,982 pounds. Oh dear. That’s hardly svelte, but then, this is hardly a svelte car, dimensionally or philosophically. What, you expected your swollen, long-roofed, leather-lined, twin-turbo V-8, AWD superwagon to weigh in like a Miata? This is an indulgent car! This is you, eating your vehicular cake.
Overwhelming Performance
It feels heavy, but maybe not more-than-two-Miatas heavy. Power and acceleration are nonsensical, with full-throttle blasts bringing you from the stoplight to “Haha, oh dear” speeds in alarmingly short order. Even in this age of electric-vehicle insta-torque, the accelerative pressure in this Audi will jelly your eyes and launch your phones, keys and ChapStick into the backseat, where your kids or friends will be screaming with either joy or terror. Perhaps both.
It sounds darn good, too. Audi’s long-lived 4.0-liter shouts with equal parts clean, metallic rumble and guttural roar, leaving onlookers either cheering or running for cover against the mechanical gnash. For the record, a hard pull through downtown L.A.’s famed 2nd Street tunnel in an RS 6 will echo between the buildings on either side (or so I’ve been told).
But the RS 6 Avant ain’t just for hauling ass; it hauls friends, too. So, in comes my buddy Rich for a morning charge up Angeles Crest Highway. We’ve got a Cars and Coffee to catch, and it’s 30 tortured, twisting canyon miles to the spot — easy work in this Audi. Its new wheels are shod in equally new P285/30R22 Continental SportContact 7 summer tires that balance daily comfort with flypaper stickiness, which was evident from our wicked pace up the mountain. It feels substantial in a reassuring way, with oodles of mechanical grip and clever power transfer that allows you to recklessly power through corners with ear-popping pace.
More From Cars.com:
Less Show, More Go
Halfway up, we were slowed by a strangely specific caravan composed solely of E90-generation BMW M3s and a cluster of Lamborghini Murcielagos. We might have lost our momentum, but we sat smugly, knowing we had the best combination of performance and creature comforts. A V-12 with a gated manual? Sorry, can’t hear you over the hum of our ventilated seats.
We arrived to a small fleet of Skittles-colored super-coupes mobbed by camera-wielding spotters. Phones and cameras raised for the Lambos, then mostly dropped as we brought up the rear. It’s funny: While the RS 6 Avant’s puffy wheel arches and long roof lend a distinctly brawny presence in regular traffic, it turns downright pedestrian when parked next to nuclear-green Porsches and bright-blue Bimmers. Soon, however, some looky-loos took notice and filtered over to ask questions and take photos.
Cars observed and coffee had, we traded alpine air for our home turf’s beach sun — but not before a sandwich stop downtown. At that point, we wanted the V-8 to shut up and the adaptive air suspension to just loosen up, man, as we threaded highway traffic and avoided Frogtown potholes. The RS 6 manages to be pretty comfy in its most soporific setting, let down only by the huge wheels and low-profile tires, which impart road noise and a skosh more harshness than I’d like on my daily commute.
Creature Comforts
Other inputs are less aggressive. Even off the mountainside, the RS 6 Avant’s electrically assisted steering is numb and quite digital, but active rear-wheel steering effectively shrink-wraps the car’s bulk in small parking lots and drastically improves turn-in when wheeling through tight, technical roads. The Avant’s massive brakes are almost as impressive as the twin-turbo monster up front, seemingly folding the pavement with their decelerative force. The brake pedal is easy to modulate in any environment, too, with none of the frustrating, head-banging motions for passengers that an overly sensitive performance-car brake pedal can induce.
Regarding interior accoutrement, the RS 6 features the same level of trim and tinsel you’d get on a line-topping Audi from any model family save the A8 and Q8. Truly bougie buyers can spring for the Executive Package, which adds soft-close doors, extended leather and heated rear seats. They can also add an optional Bang & Olufsen sound system and oh-so-necessary night-vision assist tech.
It’s a lot of car but not a lot of time, I’m afraid. Audi hasn’t said a word about the future of its fastest gas-powered sedans — including the mechanically identical RS 7 — but looking at wider trends, the next RS 6 Avant might have either a whole lot more or a whole lot less under its hood. However long we have with this car, I’m just glad it’s here alongside the forthcoming BMW M5 Touring and a potential next-gen Mercedes-AMG E63 wagon. Rage, rage against the dying of the wagon? Rejoice, for we (might) have three.
Related Video:
Cars.com’s Editorial department is your source for automotive news and reviews. In line with Cars.com’s long-standing ethics policy, editors and reviewers don’t accept gifts or free trips from automakers. The Editorial department is independent of Cars.com’s advertising, sales and sponsored content departments.
