AUDI RS 6

Delicious—580 horsepower…in a wagon!

Power wagons have never really caught on in the U.S. Too bad, since Audi is taking the craft of wagon-roiding to an unforeseen—unfathomable, really—level with the 2009 RS 6 Avant, Audi’s most powerful production car ever.

No Excuse for Being Late to School

The RS 6 Avant is powered by a twin-turbocharged version of Audi’s Lamborghini Gallardo–derived V-10 with direct injection. We’ve heard about this mill for a long time, but now we know just how potent it will be: 580 horsepower at 6250 rpm and 479 pound-feet of torque, the latter available over what may be the fattest torque plateau in the business: 1500 to 6250 rpm.

As with every hi-po Audi, the RS 6 Avant will feature Quattro all-wheel drive, which, in this case, directs 60 percent of the engine’s torque to the rear wheels in its basic setting. The only transmission will be a modified, quick-shifting six-speed Tiptronic unit.
Steering and suspension components, including three-stage dampers, have also been retuned to accommodate the superwag’s heightened performance potential.

So how fast will it be? Audi claims 0 to 62 in 4.6 seconds—only 0.3 tick off the last R8 we tested—with a top speed predictably set at 155 mph.

Sexy Bod, Big Brakes

The RS 6 Avant’s speed is complemented by added sex appeal. The interior is gussied up in much the same way the S6 sedan is, and the body wears numerous aero mods, including a new front clip and a diffuser-endowed rear bumper.

Each of the widened fenders is filled with standard 19-inch wheels and powerful disc brakes or, as an upgrade, 20-inch wheels around a set of those increasingly popular and fantastically fade-resistant carbon ceramic brakes. The headlamps feature an underscoring of LEDs to tell the world that this ain’t no ordinary A6.

Sedan? Yes. U.S.? No.

Yes, an RS 6 sedan will be available eventually, but not until sometime after the Avant’s European introduction in April 2008.

Want one? Pack up the family and find an EU address, because Audi has no intention of bringing either RS 6 variant to North America. To say that we’re disappointed is an understatement.

2008 Mercedes-Benz C-class Estate and C63 AMG Estate

Europe gets this snazzy little utilitarian runabout, but all the U.S. gets is the GLK.

Sooner or later, it seems that gas prices here in the U.S. might catch up to those in Europe. If that happens, we’ll all be fleeing our SUVs and crossovers as though they were wired with dynamite. What will be there to shelter and transport us, our children, and all those fabulous Ikea scores we had stashed in the Exploder?

If our minds were more open to wagons, we’d be able to plop merrily into the new C-class wagon that Mercedes will unveil in Frankfurt and motor on, with all the above onboard. But given America’s peculiar aversion to wagons, this is another hauler that you won’t see unless you rent one while vacationing on the far shores of the pond.

Too bad. Based on Mercedes’ new C-class sedan, the new C-class estate promises to be a sportier drive than the taller and—no doubt—heavier upcoming GLK crossover.

With 18 cubic feet of cargo space behind the rear seats and 53 cubes with the rear seats folded, Mercedes insists the C-class estate will carry four golf bags with trolleys (pull carts for those who can’t walk and carry clubs at the same time) or 44 drink crates each holding six one-liter bottles of…juice. We can see what two people—a driver and a passenger—might be doing with 44 crates of one-liter bottles, but what are two people going to do with four sets of golf clubs? Perhaps have a bad round and snap a couple of sets each over their knees?

Your engine choices for the C-class wagon are nonexistent. (Remember? You can’t get one.) But should you move in with your third cousin, Günther von Wurstundbier, over in Sindelfingen, you’d spend your sleepless nights deciding whether to put one of two gasoline four-cylinders, two diesel four-cylinders, three gasoline V-6s, or a diesel V-6 in your new wagon.