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Driven: Audi RS 6 GT. Image by Dean Smith.

Driven: Audi RS 6 GT
We didn’t think the exceptional C8 Audi RS 6 Avant performance could be improved upon. We were wrong.

   



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Audi RS 6 GT

5 5 5 5 5

When we drove the previous-generation C7 Audi RS 6 Avant performance, we thought 'Estate Car Nirvana' had been reached. And then the C8 RS 6 arrived, and we were forced to hastily re-evaluate our viewpoint. All good stuff, until Ingolstadt once again raised the bar with the glorious 630hp performance derivative. But you can't improve on triple-distilled rapid-wagon perfection, can you? Just with some silly paint and a minuscule 0.72 per cent weight reduction? Can you?!

Test Car Specifications

Model: 2024 Audi RS 6 GT
Price: RS 6 GT as tested £176,975
Engine: 4.0-litre twin-turbocharged V8 petrol
Transmission: eight-speed Tiptronic automatic, quattro all-wheel drive with self-locking centre diff and quattro Sport rear differential
Power: 630hp at 6,000rpm
Torque: 850Nm at 2,300-4,500rpm
Emissions: 277-289g/km
Economy: 23.1mpg
0-62mph: 3.3 seconds
Top speed: 190mph (limited)
Boot space: 548-1,658 litres
Kerb weight: 2,150kg

Styling

I'm going to slip out of using the 'royal we' for this bit of the review and say that m'learned colleague, James Fossdyke, has gone on record in other esteemed publications saying that you would look like a 'berk' for having the full IMSA-inspired livery on your Audi wagon. Now I don't normally so pointedly disagree with him, as he knows his onions. And, y'know... I can kind of see where he's coming from. Motorsport paintwork does look somewhat farcical when all you're doing is rolling down the M40 at 68mph, being heartily done over by people in anonymous, seven-year-old diesel hatchbacks hammering along at 90, safe in the knowledge the cops will never be looking at their car over and above the 90 GTO-mimicking RS 6 alongside them.

But having lived with Audi UK's 'Heritage' finish GT Avant for a week, I cannot conceivably think why you would choose anything else for the über-hench bodywork clothing this ultimate expression of the RS 6 line. It looks utterly tremendous when clean, and even doubly so when it's slathered in a healthy layer of winter road grime, giving the impression the big Audi has just done a rambunctious stage through the middle of the Kielder Forest without breaking sweat. As stated at the car's unveiling, various clever trompe-l'oeil give the impression the GT is wider than other RS 6s - these being its bigger area of black detailing in the nose, the leading arches flared out aft of the front wheels due to added vents, and a neat trick at the lower edge of the tailgate to visually broaden the volume of the car when viewed from the dead-on rear - but it is, in fact, not even a millimetre extended across its beam when compared to a C8 RS 6 performance. It's more that it radiates an aura that is so incredibly mean and purposeful, thanks to some further GT-specific aesthetic flourishes such as its six-arm, 22-inch white alloy wheels, the model-specific badging, that awesome double-deck rear spoiler and the deletion of its roof rails (such a simple conceit but one that does wonders for the Audi's sleekness in profile), that you think it has to be wider.

Anyway, the long and short of all of this is that I'm happy to go on record and say that a Heritage-livered Audi RS 6 GT Avant is as fine-looking estate car as I have ever seen. Or, in fact, could ever hope to see. It's design perfection, to these eyes. Sorry, James; everyone's entitled to an opinion. It's just that yours, in this case, is wrong.

Interior

Right, back to the 'we'. If you're the lucky sod sitting in the most important chair in the cabin, you might at first wonder what the difference is between the interior of the GT and that of any other RS 6 Avant. Well, from the driver's-seat perspective, the answer is 'not all that much'. You could pick up on the GT-unique displays in the main MMI interface, or the fact there's a profusion of Dinamica microfibre swathing nearly every touchable surface you can see, or the red-and-copper contrast stitching within, or even the crimson seatbelts, the 'RS 6 GT'-logoed floor mats and the illuminated 'RS 6 GT' sill plates. But otherwise, not much has changed and that means you get a solidly built, super-high-quality interior with an ergonomic correctness to everything you operate that isn't always easy to come by in 2025.

You might also feel quite tightly held in place by your seat, which is why it's almost - almost, we stress - the case that sitting in the second row of the car is the best place to be. From there, you get the clearest view of the utterly exquisite carbon-backed bucket seats that have been installed up front. These are a pure work of art and they're almost every bit as good to look at as they are to sit in. Perhaps the only shame is that Audi didn't fit another two bucket chairs in the back of the RS 6 GT, rather like the outrageously good F90 BMW M5 CS. But maybe that defeats the point of a super-estate, who knows?

Practicality

The GT is almost as practical as any other C8 RS 6 Avant, with the same amount of rear legroom, the capability of seating five adults onboard (at a push), and all complemented by a large boot at the back. Admittedly, this is marginally smaller in the GT than it is in other RS 6s, measuring 548 litres instead of 565 due to the advanced rear differential fitted to this particular Audi, but it's still more than enough clobber-swallowing cargo space for a car of this rarefied performance standard.

Performance

Audi felt it didn't need to do anything to the RS 6's mighty 4.0-litre biturbo V8 drivetrain in the evolution from the performance model to the GT. So if you're expecting additional power and torque for your (considerable) extra outlay on this last-of-the-line special, you might be a tad disappointed.

Except no one could rationally be disappointed with 630hp and 850Nm. And while a mere 15kg diet on a car which weighed 2,090 kilos to start with is hardly going to transform the on-paper stats, the GT is nevertheless a tenth quicker to 62mph than the performance, with a searing 3.3-second time, while its arguably irrelevant top-speed limiter is raised from 174- to 190mph as standard.

And when you've experienced the sheer ferocity of this magnificent twin-turbo V8, when you've heard the relentless, thundering bellow it makes from tickover to redline when you depress the throttle fully, when you've had your internal organs rearranged by the instantaneous traction effects of thumping 850Nm of torque through a set of ultra-grippy Continental SportContact 7s via the medium of Audi's fabled quattro all-wheel-drive system, you'll not lament the GT's glittering, gobsmacking powertrain in the slightest. Well, not in the present, maybe; but you'll be mighty sad about it in the very near future, when this kind of plain-petrol V8 will be a thing of the past.

It's just staggering all around the dial. Because it has so much flexibility at its disposal, the RS 6 uses a proper, old-fashioned torque-converter auto in the form of an eight-speed Tiptronic, rather than employing the Volkswagen Group's DSG (also known as S tronic, in Audi-speak, or PDK in the world of Porsches) in one of its many specifications. Yet there can be no sweeter combination of responsiveness than a near-lag-free turbocharged eight-pot and an ultra-slick, whipcrack-rapid gearbox like this. There's certainly more drama and noise and visceral fun to the process, but the way the Audi RS 6 GT gathers speed is not unlike a hyper-powered EV these days, as it simply racks up enormous numbers on the Virtual Cockpit display in frighteningly short order indeed.

Of course, in correct Audi quattro fashion, you can deploy the RS 6 GT's monumental power no matter what the climatic conditions are like outside, which is handy because it turned up on test with us during the snowfall towards the end of 2024; somehow, that was fitting weather for it, even though the IMSA-apeing livery pays homage to Audi's US-based track exploits in the 1990s, rather than its competition cars' warbling demolition of Europe's forests in the 1980s WRC. But it's still an RS 6 at heart, which ultimately means its core DNA is that of the A6, and so the throttle is calibrated so beautifully and linearly that, if you're in Comfort mode, the GT is a total pussy cat to drive. You don't feel like you are constantly reining in an evil monster by just trying to keep the Audi to the national speed limit on the motorway. Absolutely epic brakes, too, as they're RS Ceramic items gripped by red callipers.

So when it comes to making the RS 6 go (and go very fast) and stop, we have no complaints, at all, about what Audi has served up here with the RS 6. It's mesmerising. Almost as mesmerising as the car's ability to empty your wallet. Nobody expects a 630hp, blown V8 to be good on fuel, but an average economy of 15.3mpg across 473.5 wondrous miles of testing the GT rather tells its own story about this vehicle's rampant profligacy with dead-dino juice. We did manage to coerce 20.6mpg from it on one 96-mile motorway return from Gaydon to our homeland, following on from an eye-opening day of driving one of the most risible cars we've ever had the misfortune to encounter. There's obviously few finer antidotes to such rubbishness than spending two hours at the wheel of the RS 6, time which'll quickly restore your faith in the wider automotive industry, but you'll need to exercise a nun's restraint to get the Audi beyond 20mpg on even a longer, calmly driven trip like this.

Ride & Handling

The true magic of the RS 6 GT is not in its performance. It is not in its wacky exterior finishing. It is not in the flourishing valuation of the commodity you are buying into (see Value, below). No, it is the way it handles.

Years ago, the phrase 'coilover suspension' appended to a given car would normally mean the ride quality would be comprehensively knackered. In the pursuit of outright roadholding prowess, coilovers rendered the everyday comfort levels something of a moot point. As in, there were no comfort levels to speak of. So while the coilovered vehicle would be outstanding on a deserted, snaking ribbon of road over some moorland, or immaculate on a freshly surfaced racetrack, it'd normally be abject when just covering off the boring miles getting from interesting point A to interesting point B.

Maybe the suspension companies have got a better hang of the tech now, though. Or maybe Audi's engineers knew exactly how to tune the RS 6 GT's set-up to find the sweet spot when trading off acuity with refinement. Whatever it is, this grand German express estate was followed immediately on test by the one-off Skoda Superb Sleeper, which also had its own set of (admittedly aftermarket, unlike the GT's hardware) coilovers. And both of them convinced us that every car in the world should be fitted with this chassis kit as a matter of course.

In the near-500 miles we spent with the car, there was never even a single, minuscule instance where the RS 6 GT's springs and dampers were caught out. Every possible road surface and compression and lump and bump in the road that you could conceive of, the Audi's suspension had it covered. There's a silken quality to truly top-end damping that's impossible to replicate without spending the big bucks, so even though the GT has a necessarily firm overall calibration of its underpinnings, plus those whopping alloys running on 30-profile tyres at all corners, it's never anything less than extremely comfortable. The shock absorbers do a terrific job of performing just that role, the absorption of any significant shocks long before they make their way to the passenger compartment, so while the RS 6 is always informative about the road conditions, it's never intrusively non-compliant. It just glides across any tarmac you care to show it, ethereally smoothing out the surface into glassy serenity.

This makes the GT a supreme cruiser, with an unyielding level of reductivism to the sound-deadening (which is nevertheless reduced in this car so you can better hear the majestic noises its engine and exhaust make between them) that keeps both tyre and wind noise to an acceptable minimum. But that's not where the RS 6's suspension does its best work. No, it's in the way it keeps 2,075kg of hard-charging Audi wagon completely in check when you decide to stress-test that chassis. Ably aided and abetted by a holy dynamic trifecta of a locking centre-diff with a 40:60 front-to-rear torque split, the Audi quattro Sport differential on the rear axle and four-wheel steering, and then all gratifyingly overlaid with the best steering tune (for feel, weighting, consistency and feedback) of any road car wearing four rings we've ever sampled, you end up with one of the all-time great performance machines.

Seriously, the RS 6 GT is an unmitigated riot to drive. You can lean on the immense levels of grip when braking, setting the car up for a corner and then getting its astoundingly eager front axle turned in for the bend, before ramping up the insane power from the V8 as soon as you have sight of the exit of the curve. What happens is that the RS 6 GT will either slingshot out onto the next straight in an incredibly clean display of all-wheel-drive supremacy, or it will even transition into progressive, easily caught and thoroughly enjoyable oversteer. At no point does this C8 ever convey the idea that it is too large and too heavy to enjoy on the roads; and even when you're not completely 'on it' in the RS 6 GT, because to drive it so might put risk to life, limb and licence, there are enough marvellous, unfiltered streams of data flooding back to the driver through both the Dinamica-clad wheel and the base of that extraordinary carbon-bucket seat to keep the enjoyment levels high. Or, in other words, the Audi is just as gratifying to stoke along at a more reasonable road pace than it is extending it right to the kinematic limit. It is, if you precis it down to the bare bones, an utter delight to drive for every single metre you cover when sitting at its wheel.

Value

At an asking price of £176,975, when an unadorned RS 6 performance was priced from £115,480 as recently as this time last year, the GT hardly looks like good value. A premium equivalent to an entire, bog-basic RS 3 Sportback (it's a £61,495 gap between the two 630hp RS 6s, so you'd even have £1,360 left over in change to fuel your hyperhatch... for a while, at least) is not to be sniffed at, when all you seem to be getting is a microscopically quicker 0-62mph time, a 16mph raise on a top speed you can't even hope to get close to in the UK anyway, some fancy seats inside and the zany paintwork on the outside.

But the GT is something considerably more than that. It's a poignant end to the RS 6 as we know it. The zenith of Audi's long-held and considerably exalted rapid-estate know-how. And it's a limited edition. Just 660 RS 6 GTs have been built for the entire planet, and of those a relative handful (60 examples) were slated for the UK. All of them, worldwide, have been sold, so clearly there were plenty of buyers willing to fork out the big chunk of extra dosh needed for the GT. This one, KY24 TNU, is the penultimate car in the line - number 659 of 660, belonging to Audi UK for the foreseeable. We'd be ready to bet that both 1 of 660 and the final RS 6 GT are either in, or probably somewhere very close to the company's home headquarters in Bavaria. So that brings the number of 'wild' examples down to 657.

Is hen's teeth rarity enough to justify the uptick for this specific RS 6? Well, as we saw a number of examples of the GT on a certain well-known car-sales website at the time of writing this piece, all being flipped for a quarter-of-a-million quid and more, then we'd say 'yes'. It's clear there will never be another RS 6, with an unadorned petrol engine alone, that will ever eclipse the GT for desirability and capability, in equal measure. Even if you're not one of those trying to flog your prized Audi wagon in the here-and-now, you're clearly not going to lose any money on it in the longer term. Maybe one day, we'll witness these things being auctioned off in the midst of a well-heeled enthusiast frenzy that sees clean, surviving examples of the RS 6 GT going for seven figures and more...

Verdict

Cars as phenomenal as the Audi RS 6 GT only come along every so often as it is, but an entirely electric-powered future means we probably shan't see their like again. And that's an enormous pity, particularly when you've tried something as heavenly and as joyously thrilling as this GT. There has never been a fast estate that comes anywhere close to matching its stratospheric dynamic abilities, and we seriously doubt there ever will be either, and there are precious few vehicles of any kind that can marry together its intoxicating blend of superb day-to-day practicality with the sort of mammoth, ingrained desirability that only an Audi RS product can provide. Too much extra money on top of the already-blinding RS 6 performance? Daft to run around in an estate that's visually modelled on a Stateside-based Audi silhouette track car? Nothing but an odd footnote to the ICE-powered Audi RS dynasty? 'Yes', 'probably' and 'no', would be our emhpatic answers to those questions. Because we have never wanted a car quite as much as we want the Audi RS 6 GT. It is unquestionably sublime.



Matt Robinson - 20 Jan 2025



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2025 Audi RS 6 GT Avant UK test. Image by Dean Smith.2025 Audi RS 6 GT Avant UK test. Image by Dean Smith.2025 Audi RS 6 GT Avant UK test. Image by Dean Smith.2025 Audi RS 6 GT Avant UK test. Image by Dean Smith.2025 Audi RS 6 GT Avant UK test. Image by Dean Smith.

2025 Audi RS 6 GT Avant UK test. Image by Dean Smith.2025 Audi RS 6 GT Avant UK test. Image by Dean Smith.2025 Audi RS 6 GT Avant UK test. Image by Dean Smith.2025 Audi RS 6 GT Avant UK test. Image by Dean Smith.2025 Audi RS 6 GT Avant UK test. Image by Dean Smith.








 

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