Audi RS6 Avant Hire Sydney: Review, Specs and the Boot Test

The RS6 Avant is the answer to a question most performance cars refuse to hear: what if I need to bring the pram. It is a wagon with a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, all-wheel drive, air suspension and 565 litres of boot, and it will reach 100km/h faster than a Lamborghini Gallardo with the child seats still fitted. This page is for the reader who has a family and has not stopped loving cars. It is confirmed by request; tell us your dates and what you need to carry, and we will say whether we can deliver one.

★★★★★ Rated 5.0 from 1,431 reviews across Drive Tribe

Specifications

Take the boot figure and the acceleration figure together. 565 litres with five seats in
use is more than most SUVs offer, and 3.6 seconds to 100km/h is quicker than a Lamborghini
Gallardo. No other car reviewed on this site puts those two numbers on the same table.

What It Is Actually Like in Sydney

A wagon that people cross the road to look at

The RS6 Avant shares almost none of its outer panels with the A6 it is based on. The wings
are pushed out, the wheel arches are wide enough to house 22-inch wheels, the bonnet has been
reshaped and the front is all intake. It sits low on its air suspension and it looks, from
every angle, like something built for a purpose. Parked outside a school gate or a cafe on
the beachfront it draws the sort of attention a supercar draws, from people who would never
approach a supercar. It has been the enthusiasts' car for people with children for twenty
years; the C8 is simply the first generation that reached Australia in real numbers.

It is also the sleeper of this list in a way the G-Wagon can never be. The G-Wagon
announces its arrival from a street away; the RS6 is a grey estate car until someone who
knows looks at the arches, and then it is the most interesting thing in the car park. For a
wedding, a school reunion or a client dinner where the car should be admired rather than
remarked upon, that is a rare quality, and it photographs beautifully at the end of a day
when it is covered in dust from a country road.

The V8 has two personalities

At a cruise the 4.0-litre twin-turbo runs on four cylinders and coasts with the engine
switched off when the mild-hybrid system decides it can, so a run up the M1 is quiet and, for
a car this powerful, not ruinous on fuel. Press the throttle and all eight cylinders return,
the turbos fill, and 800Nm arrives from low in the rev range. The car does not seem to
accelerate so much as change location. On the Pacific Highway climb out of Gosford, or
overtaking a truck on the Hume, it is over before the passengers have registered it. The
sound is a deep V8 rumble with a hard edge at the top of the range; it is not loud in the
default modes, and the sports exhaust can make it louder when the road is empty.

The roads that suit it are the long ones. Sydney to the snow via the Hume and the Monaro
Highway is a day in which the RS6 is the best car imaginable: a full boot, four people, the
cruise control holding a steady speed and the V8 asleep on four cylinders until an overtake
needs it. The Hunter is a comfortable morning. The Blue Mountains via Bells Line of Road is
where the dynamic mode earns its keep on the way up and the comfort mode earns it on the way
home with everyone tired.

Air suspension is what makes it a family car

Big wheels and enormous power usually mean a hard ride. The RS6 rides on air springs with
adaptive dampers, so on the motorway in comfort mode it glides over the expansion joints that
make lesser cars fidget, and on Bells Line of Road in dynamic mode it drops, firms up and
stops rolling. A toddler asleep in the back stays asleep. That single feature is what allows
this car to be the transport for a week and the toy for a Sunday morning without anyone in
the family having to compromise, and it is the reason the RS6 rather than a sedan is the car
enthusiasts with children keep coming back to.

The boot, honestly measured

565 litres with the rear seats up means a large pram folded flat, two hard suitcases and
the soft bags around them, or a full week of a family's gear for a house on the Central
Coast. The floor is long and flat and the load lip is low, so lifting a heavy case in does
not strain anyone's back. Fold the rear seats and a surfboard goes inside on the diagonal
with the tailgate shut. Roof rails take a rack if you need more. It is the reason to choose
this over a four-door M3 or an AMG sedan with the same sort of pace: those cars carry four
people; this one carries four people and everything they own.

The cabin behind the boot is as considered. Two child seats fit on the outer rear
positions with the anchor points where they should be, the middle seat still works for a
third child, and the rear climate controls stop the argument about the temperature before it
starts. The front is Audi's best interior of the period, with two screens, real switches for
the things you use while driving and seats that suit a long day.

Things You Should Know

Exotic tier: 25 and over

The RS6 sits in the Exotic tier alongside the AMG GT and the Ferrari FF rather than with
the Performance cars, and the minimum driver age is 25 with a full, unrestricted licence
checked at handover. The reasons are the same as for any car in that tier: the replacement
value, the speed, and the width. Additional drivers are named on the booking and must meet
the same age and licence requirements. Nobody unnamed is covered, not even for the drive to
the shops, and that includes a partner who is a perfectly good driver.

People sometimes ask why a wagon sits with the Ferraris rather than with the M3 and the
C63. The answer is the car's value new and the way it uses its speed. It weighs more than two
tonnes, it is quicker to 100km/h than most of the two-seaters reviewed on this site, and a
mistake in it is an expensive one. The 25-year minimum is not a judgement about the driver;
it is the same line drawn for every car in this bracket.

It is nearly two metres wide

The widened body is close to two metres across before the mirrors, and older Sydney car
parks were built for something narrower. The surround cameras are excellent and the optional
all-wheel steering tightens the turning circle, but a tight underground park at Bondi
Junction or a terrace street in Glebe still requires patience. The 22-inch wheels, if fitted,
sit close to every kerb. Take reverse parks slowly; a scraped rim is the most common thing to
happen to this car and the least dramatic to sort out if you tell us on the day rather than
at return.

Fuel, the Performance version and what the bond covers

It takes 98-octane premium. Driven gently on the motorway the cylinder-on-demand system
makes it surprisingly reasonable; driven the way 441kW invites, expect to fill it more often
than you planned. If the car we can source for your dates is the Performance version, it
carries 463kW with the same gearbox and drivetrain, and we will tell you which you are
getting when we confirm. The bond is a hold on your card rather than a charge, the excess on
this tier is stated before you pay, and the option to reduce it is offered at the same
point. Neither figure changes on the day.

Who Books This Car

Parents who used to own something fast and want a week where the school run, the airport
pick-up and the Sunday drive are all done in the same car. A group of four heading to the
snow or the Hunter with luggage who want to arrive quickly and in comfort. A business
traveller who needs to move colleagues and equipment between Sydney and Canberra and would
rather do it in this than in a hire SUV. Enthusiasts who know that the RS6 Avant is the car
other car people admire, and want a few days with one before deciding whether to buy.

The pattern of a good RS6 booking is a week rather than a weekend. The car earns its rate
on the days it does the ordinary things, because the ordinary things are what a two-seat
exotic cannot do, and the one good drive on the Sunday morning is the reward. Book it for a
week of school holidays, a family visit from interstate, or the week a partner is going to
say the car is unnecessary and then ask to drive it.

It is priced from $950 a day, a hundred dollars over the four-door M3 xDrive and a clear
step under the two-seat exotics. Confirmed by request: send us your dates, tell us what you
need to carry, and we source the car and confirm it, in writing, before you pay a cent.