Audi RS4 Avant returns

To Audi’s quattro GmbH hotshop, the humble wagon has always been a good place to cram all of its go-fast bits and pieces, and it’s been a surprise that it has left the A4 Avant alone for so long.

That’s about to change, though, with quattro bringing back the RS4 nameplate, with huge acceleration and the promise of ferocious grip, in the third quarter of the year. At least, in Europe...

The even-better news is that this 4.2-litre, 331kW rocket, which will bellow its way to 100km/h in 4.7 seconds, will launch in Germany at €76,600.

But, as with all of quattro GmbH’s RS models, there’s a downside. In this case, history would indicate that the well-respected A4 Avant has entered its dotage and has less than two years to live.

Still, that’s a small price to pay for a car that takes the RS5 coupe’s rich, sonorous powertrain and basically drops the more-practical, under-the-radar five-door wagon body shell on top of it.

Yet, this is not the sort of wagon that will go completely unnoticed. As with all of history’s RS wagons, it gives out hints of its extra menace with a wider, lower stance, grippier seats and 19-inch, purpose-built 10-spoke alloy wheels and tyres. It’s new, splitter-equipped front end and its pair of oval exhausts means it’s 20mm longer than the standard car, its huge wheelarch flares make it 24mm wider and it has also been lowered 20mm.

It will be fast, have no doubt. While it’s limited to 250km/h, there is the option to lift that to 280km/h and the engine certainly has the urge to reach those heights. A tremendously strong and an old-fashioned high revver, it pushes out 108 horsepower per litre and reaches its power peak at 8250rpm.

The 4163cc all-alloy V8 is naturally aspirated, so don’t expect M5-esque torque figures. Instead, it has 430Nm spread from 4000 to 6000rpm.

For all that, though, the free-breathing V8 lacks start-stop and other standard testing tweaks, so its 11.0L/100km combined fuel economy number ends up just over a litre worse than BMW’s M5, even though the larger BMW has a twin-turbo V8, with more torque and power.

It pushes all of this performance through a seven-speed, dual-clutch transmission that attaches itself to quattro’s all-wheel drive system. Featuring the superb crown-gear centre differential, it can punch up to 70 per cent of the drive to the front axle or 85 per cent the to rear, depending on the need, and it does it more or less instantly. This crown gear system is a self-locking unit and it’s quick enough to include torque vectoring in its list of talents.

Most of the time it runs 60 per cent of its drive to the rear, but there’s also a launch-control system, which sees the gearbox’s brain control the engine’s version to hammer off the line as hard as possible.

The RS4 takes the A4’s five-link front suspension setup and replaces a few key pieces with aluminium, but the real key is the introduction of a new electro-mechanical, speed-dependent steering system that uses less fuel and, quattro claims, gives more feedback.

Deep inside those purpose-designed alloys lurks Audi’s latest braking system, with eight-piston front calipers clamping down on 365mm front discs. They are cross-drilled, ventilated and come complete with a wave-like outer rim to better dissipate heat and to save 3kg.

The driving feel will be controlled by a stability control setup that can be completely switched off to get to the raw feel of the car, and Audi’s three-level Drive Select system (Comfort, Automatic, Dynamic) is standard and controls the throttle, the transmission, the steering and the stability control electrics.

Inside, the RS4 will be almost all black, with the exceptions of plenty of brushed aluminium and carbon-fibre in the trim. Its seats will be far grippier than they are on the standard model, while the flat-bottomed steering wheel comes compete with shift paddles. And there’s no sacrificing the A4 Avant’s 1430 litres of luggage capacity, because the rear seats can still be folded flat.

That’s most of the standard stuff, but it doesn’t end there. The RS4 Avant will have Audi’s crown-wheel sports differential as an option, along with larger, 380mm carbon-ceramic brake discs up front.

There’s also a sports exhaust, that will add depth and volume to the standard RS4’s burbly outlet pipe, there are different seats on offer and the system to make the car a rolling internet hotspot is also optional.

The handling should also benefit from options, including 265/30 ZR20 tyres wrapped around their own unique rims, a new dynamic steering system that can vary its ratio by almost 100 per cent and a Dynamic Ride Control. This last system uses hydraulics to link diagonally opposite dampers via a central valve, which Audi electronically controls to help stabilise the body over mid-corner bumps.

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