The Audi RS6 Performance: A True Sporting Car Experience

As I stepped onto the track at Willow Springs, the temperature readout on my dashboard indicated a scorching 36 degrees Celsius. But despite the heat, I was eager to put this Audi RS6 Performance through its paces and see how it handled on the circuit. The car's weight, which is approximately 4,800 pounds, might seem substantial, but with the addition of carbon fiber suspension and brakes, it's actually a notable 8 kilograms lighter than its non-performance counterpart.

I began by putting the car through its paces in Normal drive mode, letting the transmission downshift and upshift on its own. The result was impressive – the transmission shifted seamlessly into the right gear at the right time, with barely any lag between shifts. I couldn't help but think back to my first experience with PDK (Porsche's dual-clutch transmission), which also impressed me with its intuitive shifting behavior.

As I made my way onto the track, I was struck by the car's incredible speed and agility. The steering response was excellent, with a perfect balance of weight transfer during turns. The rear differential seemed to have a unique character compared to the standard RS6 Performance, but I couldn't get exact details on that from the team – apparently, someone had to leave early for the airport.

One interesting note about this car is that it wasn't built in its entirety at the same factory as other RS6s. Instead, it started life there and was then shipped off to a special facility where it underwent final assembly, including the installation of new suspension, brakes, and carbon fiber components. This not only resulted in some weight savings but also a focus on control and response rather than purely on lightness.

As I continued to drive, I couldn't help but be impressed by how well the RS6 Performance handles on both the track and the road. The wide 275 tires seemed to work perfectly with the car's steer-by-wire system, providing a smooth ride that belied its performance credentials. And when it comes down to it, the real difference-maker here is the evolution of these cars – they've come a long way from their earlier, more rough-around-the-edges versions.

But what really sets this RS6 apart is its incredible acceleration and top-end speed. I couldn't help but think back to my first time watching an 80-90 mph pass a car that was doing around 60 – it's just not the same as being in the thick of it, feeling the force of the car pushing you back into your seat. And yes, this is exactly what it feels like – it's essentially a 1000lb or more racing car, with almost the same amount of horsepower as some of the best 90s racing cars out there.

For Audi enthusiasts and fans of high-performance vehicles, the RS6 Performance is definitely worth considering. Yes, on paper, it may seem similar to other RS6 models, but the price tag at $225,000 – a staggering $100,000 more than the base model – makes this car hard to ignore for those who crave a truly exceptional driving experience. And if you're willing to shell out the cash, you'll find that the RS6 Performance is indeed one of the most enjoyable cars in its class.

But what really sets this car apart is its focus on delivering an authentic sporting experience. Whether it's handling like a purpose-built racing car or delivering all-wheel drive traction and stability when needed, every aspect of the driving experience has been carefully considered to deliver a truly unique ride. And if you're looking for a car that will let you keep your foot down and enjoy the thrill of high-performance driving without the need to worry about compromise, then this RS6 is definitely worth considering.

Whether or not it's "worth" the money depends on personal taste – but for those who have refined palates and appreciate the difference between a true performance car like this and its non-performance counterparts. This RS6 Performance isn't just about raw speed; it's also about delivering an exceptional driving experience that will leave you smiling from ear to ear.

As I concluded my testing session on the track, I couldn't help but feel impressed by what I'd experienced with the Audi RS6 Performance. Whether or not it's for you will depend on your priorities and preferences – but this car is undoubtedly one of the most enjoyable driving experiences out there.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enyes sir this here competes with the BMW uh in Wall Street and all around town it's got the same roof as our big race car fast wagons have been an endangered species for some time and like a commercial that asks you to help save the pandas which you KN along with but then you get a snack and you forget about it many car enthusiasts will profess their love to the wagon but Mary it's taller sibling the crossover and so fast wag are rare here but this might be the rarest it's the new Audi RS6 Avant GT only 85 will come to the US critics note that it has the same 621 horsepower twin turbo V8 as the RS6 performance and the GT has a familiar comfortable interior yet costs $100,000 more is it worth it that's what I'm here to find out and there are differences between the two cars some are invisible some are not so why does this car look like it got stuck in a spider-verse glitch in the Audi paint booth well it's because of this car more specifically it's because of the car Audi was campaigning in Trans Am racing in 1989 it was their first season entering that series and they basically got banned they won eight out of 13 races and all-wheel drive itself was banned from Trans Am racing so what was Audi going to do take their Dolly and go home no they took their Dolly to imsa and imsa allowed tubular space frames so instead of using a sort of production car which the Audi 200 was they got to build this tube chassis but with the brains and Braun from WRC and from that Trans Am car it had about 720 horsepower all-wheel drive weighs nearly nothing and when it showed up in imsa it wrecked the series it won seven out of 133 races took second in the constructor's championship H stook got third in the driver's championship and they did all that after skipping two of the biggest races of the year the differences between the Audi RS6 performance and the GT are small but important allow me to present them game show style the hood and fenders are now carbon fiber and there's a new front splitter six spoke office Wheels hiding 10 piston carbon ceramic brakes and three-way adjustable coilovers the power is the same but the roof no roof rack and there's no sunroof we have rear wheels which are good the rear splitter is the same but there is a new bit of molding from the tailgate to the bumper that does look really nice and of course the big Wing the air goes there if you get this car in the United States there's not many options there's not really any options at all but if you get it in Europe it's quite a buffet you can get it with the these carbon bucket seats which we don't get here you can also get it in different colors which is kind of funny considering the Livery is the homage to that race car but in Europe you can get a couple other liveries you can also get it in simple colors except the Audi RS6 performance does 0 to 60 in 3.3 seconds and this does it in 3.2 let's find out it will also go on to a top speed of 190 mph which is 35 mph higher than the normal RS6 Avant performance goes all right let's be real the numbers aren't that impressive because they're not that different a tenth of a second who could notice especially today when it's 100° out however there is one thing you cannot change about this car in the United States that I happy about and that is the suspension they get rid of the Adaptive air ride that comes with the normal RS6 Avant and instead you get Triple adjustable coilovers in Europe you can get a bunch of different suspensions but I kind of respect the fact that the car is an homage and you get one option here if you're going to model something after a race car remove some of the choices you know if if you want an RS6 Avant on air suspension just get the RS six aant performance you get the power you get the clever Center differential which this one has and you can get it with height adjustable suspension and save a bunch of money and you don't have to have the crazy Technicolor shattered glass uh window pane Livery that this has so I'm glad that here there is something that separates this from the regular RS6 and that is the suspension and the rear differential the rear differential has been tuned to specifically be a little bit more lively and a little bit more rear biased you can send up to 85% of available torque to the rear and 70% to the front I guess if the rear is stuck on the ice Biff that corner the last RS6 I drove had the air suspension and I was not on a racetrack I was on a Canyon Road so I can't really compare the two apples to apples but what I will say about this one is that it has the amount of body roll I want from a performance car it has the firmness feels correct and the response in turns feels pretty good for a 4700 lb vehicle grip is really impressive 275 tires all around those brakes feel really nice it is hot today and they are not fading at all brake pedal pressure is pretty easy I can mod modulated but it doesn't require a ton of effort like it does in a McLaren or a Porsche RS or something and then the speed 80 90 100 110 even on this scorching day replicating the surface of Mars right now the speed is ridiculous temperature readout is in Celsius it says 36° I will do the math in a lower third the steering response is good speed of the rack is perfect I'm not having to do any hand overand steering feedback it's okay it's okay honestly comparable to an M3 which is not so much a complement to the RS6 as it is a insult to the M3 transmission is an 8-speed automatic and I am impressed with how it upshifts and downshifts during some of the laps I had it in normal drive mode I was letting it downshift and upshift for itself and and it was choosing the right gear under braking and it was downshifting to that gear rather quickly intuitively I would say same thing that impressed me about pdk when I first experienced it long long ago was keeping the car in sport drive mode and letting it do the shifting and it shifted the right way at the right time it's hard to tell just how different that rear differential is from the normal RS6 performance performance they have one here but they said we can't track it because someone has to get back to the airport I empathize Willow Springs on a 100° day can be a little bit trying on Cars one cool little note about this car is it's not even built in its entirety next to the other RS 6s it starts there at that factory but once it's done with paint sent over to where they build the rron GT for final assembly and a special team puts on the new suspension the new brakes all that stuff so between the carbon fiber the suspension and the brakes this car is quite a bit lighter than the other one 8 kgs that's 17 lb in America and 17 is a bigger number than eight that means the total weight is about 4,800 pounds so yeah it's not the lightest thing in the world but that suspension is not so much about weight savings as it is about control and response you can adjust it three different ways damping ride height and Camber and whoever set this up has done a good job CU this car does a really good job of pretending to be a lighter thing than it is we got wide 275 tires all around the Turnin is pretty quick it works really well with this steer steering rack little bit of conversation happening between the front and rear tires I mean this is an amazing time to be into cars it really is this thing probably weighs 1,000 lb maybe 2,000 lb more than that 90 race car down there but it makes almost the same amount of horsepower that's just I understand that that's just how Evolution works with automobiles I'm just saying that while we we are that there are fewer cheap sports cars out there God you just you have to respect the engineering that is happening at this level good Lord all-wheel drive wagon adjustable coilovers big V8 noise how do you not love this how do you not love this kind of car i' I first Lov the B5 S4 wagon I just thought it was one of the coolest looking things in the world that was long before I knew about all of their reliability issues and their weight bias and the balance but this this doesn't have any of those old Audi problems and I know that I'm on a really smooth Racetrack and I know that the RS6 in The Wrong settings can be a little bumpy on the street but this pays homage to a race car so they made it feel like a proper sporting car yeah it's heavy but it is fast it is fast Jesus oh my God I can hear your Instagram comments and DMS already Zach is it worth the money on paper it may not appear that different from other RS 6s you can buy but the price at the bottom of that paper certainly is this car starts at $225,000 100,000 more than a bass RS6 performance perance for many that will be hard to understand but for True Audi nerds it won't be plenty of other companies tweak an existing product attach some history constrain the production numbers and mark the price up the 911 St is the current king of this game and that car requires a refined pallet to feel the difference between it and the GT3 on which it's based if you have those taste buds but you also have a family of four and you love Audi who are we to say that this isn't worth it and based on how this drives you will enjoy keeping that fast wagon torch lit and remember always fight your tickets on the off the Record app available in the Android and iOS store or go to offthe record.com TSTyes sir this here competes with the BMW uh in Wall Street and all around town it's got the same roof as our big race car fast wagons have been an endangered species for some time and like a commercial that asks you to help save the pandas which you KN along with but then you get a snack and you forget about it many car enthusiasts will profess their love to the wagon but Mary it's taller sibling the crossover and so fast wag are rare here but this might be the rarest it's the new Audi RS6 Avant GT only 85 will come to the US critics note that it has the same 621 horsepower twin turbo V8 as the RS6 performance and the GT has a familiar comfortable interior yet costs $100,000 more is it worth it that's what I'm here to find out and there are differences between the two cars some are invisible some are not so why does this car look like it got stuck in a spider-verse glitch in the Audi paint booth well it's because of this car more specifically it's because of the car Audi was campaigning in Trans Am racing in 1989 it was their first season entering that series and they basically got banned they won eight out of 13 races and all-wheel drive itself was banned from Trans Am racing so what was Audi going to do take their Dolly and go home no they took their Dolly to imsa and imsa allowed tubular space frames so instead of using a sort of production car which the Audi 200 was they got to build this tube chassis but with the brains and Braun from WRC and from that Trans Am car it had about 720 horsepower all-wheel drive weighs nearly nothing and when it showed up in imsa it wrecked the series it won seven out of 133 races took second in the constructor's championship H stook got third in the driver's championship and they did all that after skipping two of the biggest races of the year the differences between the Audi RS6 performance and the GT are small but important allow me to present them game show style the hood and fenders are now carbon fiber and there's a new front splitter six spoke office Wheels hiding 10 piston carbon ceramic brakes and three-way adjustable coilovers the power is the same but the roof no roof rack and there's no sunroof we have rear wheels which are good the rear splitter is the same but there is a new bit of molding from the tailgate to the bumper that does look really nice and of course the big Wing the air goes there if you get this car in the United States there's not many options there's not really any options at all but if you get it in Europe it's quite a buffet you can get it with the these carbon bucket seats which we don't get here you can also get it in different colors which is kind of funny considering the Livery is the homage to that race car but in Europe you can get a couple other liveries you can also get it in simple colors except the Audi RS6 performance does 0 to 60 in 3.3 seconds and this does it in 3.2 let's find out it will also go on to a top speed of 190 mph which is 35 mph higher than the normal RS6 Avant performance goes all right let's be real the numbers aren't that impressive because they're not that different a tenth of a second who could notice especially today when it's 100° out however there is one thing you cannot change about this car in the United States that I happy about and that is the suspension they get rid of the Adaptive air ride that comes with the normal RS6 Avant and instead you get Triple adjustable coilovers in Europe you can get a bunch of different suspensions but I kind of respect the fact that the car is an homage and you get one option here if you're going to model something after a race car remove some of the choices you know if if you want an RS6 Avant on air suspension just get the RS six aant performance you get the power you get the clever Center differential which this one has and you can get it with height adjustable suspension and save a bunch of money and you don't have to have the crazy Technicolor shattered glass uh window pane Livery that this has so I'm glad that here there is something that separates this from the regular RS6 and that is the suspension and the rear differential the rear differential has been tuned to specifically be a little bit more lively and a little bit more rear biased you can send up to 85% of available torque to the rear and 70% to the front I guess if the rear is stuck on the ice Biff that corner the last RS6 I drove had the air suspension and I was not on a racetrack I was on a Canyon Road so I can't really compare the two apples to apples but what I will say about this one is that it has the amount of body roll I want from a performance car it has the firmness feels correct and the response in turns feels pretty good for a 4700 lb vehicle grip is really impressive 275 tires all around those brakes feel really nice it is hot today and they are not fading at all brake pedal pressure is pretty easy I can mod modulated but it doesn't require a ton of effort like it does in a McLaren or a Porsche RS or something and then the speed 80 90 100 110 even on this scorching day replicating the surface of Mars right now the speed is ridiculous temperature readout is in Celsius it says 36° I will do the math in a lower third the steering response is good speed of the rack is perfect I'm not having to do any hand overand steering feedback it's okay it's okay honestly comparable to an M3 which is not so much a complement to the RS6 as it is a insult to the M3 transmission is an 8-speed automatic and I am impressed with how it upshifts and downshifts during some of the laps I had it in normal drive mode I was letting it downshift and upshift for itself and and it was choosing the right gear under braking and it was downshifting to that gear rather quickly intuitively I would say same thing that impressed me about pdk when I first experienced it long long ago was keeping the car in sport drive mode and letting it do the shifting and it shifted the right way at the right time it's hard to tell just how different that rear differential is from the normal RS6 performance performance they have one here but they said we can't track it because someone has to get back to the airport I empathize Willow Springs on a 100° day can be a little bit trying on Cars one cool little note about this car is it's not even built in its entirety next to the other RS 6s it starts there at that factory but once it's done with paint sent over to where they build the rron GT for final assembly and a special team puts on the new suspension the new brakes all that stuff so between the carbon fiber the suspension and the brakes this car is quite a bit lighter than the other one 8 kgs that's 17 lb in America and 17 is a bigger number than eight that means the total weight is about 4,800 pounds so yeah it's not the lightest thing in the world but that suspension is not so much about weight savings as it is about control and response you can adjust it three different ways damping ride height and Camber and whoever set this up has done a good job CU this car does a really good job of pretending to be a lighter thing than it is we got wide 275 tires all around the Turnin is pretty quick it works really well with this steer steering rack little bit of conversation happening between the front and rear tires I mean this is an amazing time to be into cars it really is this thing probably weighs 1,000 lb maybe 2,000 lb more than that 90 race car down there but it makes almost the same amount of horsepower that's just I understand that that's just how Evolution works with automobiles I'm just saying that while we we are that there are fewer cheap sports cars out there God you just you have to respect the engineering that is happening at this level good Lord all-wheel drive wagon adjustable coilovers big V8 noise how do you not love this how do you not love this kind of car i' I first Lov the B5 S4 wagon I just thought it was one of the coolest looking things in the world that was long before I knew about all of their reliability issues and their weight bias and the balance but this this doesn't have any of those old Audi problems and I know that I'm on a really smooth Racetrack and I know that the RS6 in The Wrong settings can be a little bumpy on the street but this pays homage to a race car so they made it feel like a proper sporting car yeah it's heavy but it is fast it is fast Jesus oh my God I can hear your Instagram comments and DMS already Zach is it worth the money on paper it may not appear that different from other RS 6s you can buy but the price at the bottom of that paper certainly is this car starts at $225,000 100,000 more than a bass RS6 performance perance for many that will be hard to understand but for True Audi nerds it won't be plenty of other companies tweak an existing product attach some history constrain the production numbers and mark the price up the 911 St is the current king of this game and that car requires a refined pallet to feel the difference between it and the GT3 on which it's based if you have those taste buds but you also have a family of four and you love Audi who are we to say that this isn't worth it and based on how this drives you will enjoy keeping that fast wagon torch lit and remember always fight your tickets on the off the Record app available in the Android and iOS store or go to offthe record.com TST\n"