Audi RS6 Avant GT Review: For the Nerds

I’m not sure what possessed Audi to launch the 621-horsepower, 4,600-pound RS6 Avant GT at the tight and winding Streets of Willow Springs race track. They also asked me not to drive too hard so I don’t wear out the tires on a 105-degree day. You can’t win ’em all.

The RS6 Avant GT is essentially an Audi RS6 Avant Performance with a few visual flicks and bobs. It has special wheels painted in body-matched white—modeled after old fast Audis—and an Audi Sport livery draped over a slightly modified shell. The front fenders and hood are carbon fiber, the fender vents are more aggressive, and beneath the massive grilles are upgraded coolers to help cope with the demands of the track.

Inside, the “RS6 GT” logo is emblazoned on the seats, door sill kick plates, and carpets, while the Audi Sport tricolor motif lives in every stitch. Completing the party are three-way adjustable coilover dampers to help firm up and lower the superwagon.

This car was originally a Skunkworks project dreamt up by Audi engineers who wanted to commemorate a certain historic Audi racecar: The Audi 90 Quattro IMSA GTO. In the earliest prototypes, engineers gave the car louder and prouder side pipes, but annoying things like “emissions” and “sound regulations” prevented them from making it to production. Damn.

It’s still special, though. Instead of being largely machine-built like the normal RS6, the GT will be hand-finished on its own production line. Audi will make just 660 of them, each sequentially numbered and etched into the center console; Even fewer will make it to North America, with just 85 destined for the US and 7 for Canada.

On track, the RS6 GT is… an RS6 performance. The difference, even with the adjustable dampers, is negligible. It might even feel softer than normal without the active damper trickery that the standard car gets.

Either way, the GT corners flat and changes direction with mild haste; You can feel the embattled tires roll over mid-corner and give up the ghost. I know somewhere in Germany an Audi engineer gets an eye twitch anytime a journalist says “understeer,” but there is no other suitable description of the GT’s handling.

To be fair to this car, Streets of Willow is maybe the worst-case scenario. This is a tight track that rewards small, lightweight, agile cars—things that an RS6 Avant is definitely not. Even Audi admitted that the RS6 GT isn’t a track special, but it could handle fun lapping if the occasion called for it.

As far as this class of overweight European performance sedans goes, the RS6 GT is reasonably fun and more communicative than something like an xDrive BMW M3, at least. But it’s still huge. If a car could be the definition of, “If I fits, I sits,” it would be this car, on this very track, on any given corner.

But that’s not really the point.

The RS6 GT is an Audi nerd’s Audi, rather than an enticing catch for folks wanting a new daily driver. It’s for the kind of person who knows exactly who won Rally Argentina in 1984, or regards Hans-Joachim Stuck and Walther Röhrl as household names. It’s an emotional play on a historic Audi race car that comes with unique parts from the factory that will make any Euro nerd geek out over it.

So who really cares if it’s just a livery and some suspension? If you do care, you’re probably not the person slamming down over $200,000 for one of them. The RS6 GT is cool.