Audi RS6 Avant more suited to cross-border driving than Hong Kong roads

This RS6 Avant Performance 4.0 TFSI Quattro looked good in Audi’s Admiralty showroom. Now its big moment on the Airport Expressway has come. The speed limit has been lifted from 80km/h to 110km/h, and the fast lane is free beyond the Disneyland turnoff. The wing mirrors are clear of incoming Toyota Alphards, and off we go.

The big Avant’s accelerator doesn’t give at the slightest touch. It seems to prefer a decisive push, and when it get one, lurches from 50km/h to 110km/h with a husky growl, like a supercar.

It is polite to warn the passengers and hold on to the dogs for such acceleration. The RS6 Avant’s V8 does 100km/h in under four seconds, and produces 700 Newton metres of torque between 1,750rpm and 6,000rpm via an eight-speed Tiptronic transmission. No jerks. No nonsense. The Avant’s top speed is an electronically limited 250km/h, but Audi can tweak it to 305km/h, and add ceramic brakes in a Dynamic package plus option (HK$122,700).

Such acceleration is all the more impressive for this big, 2,025kg car on 21-inch, five-spoke aluminium wheels. This RS6 Avant shimmers in “Sepang Blue” (but could probably part traffic better in red) with a big grille between large air intakes and angry looking LED headlights. There’s a big back end, with an electronically opened rear hatch, two large oval exhausts and powerful LED tail lights.

The rear window’s high, so you’ll really need the rear camera and mirrors for parking — assuming such a space exists for the big Avant in Hong Kong: it’s 4.979 metres long; 2.086m wide, from tip to tip of its indicator-flashing mirrors; and 1.482m tall to its titanium-look roof bars and shark-fin radio antenna.

The V8 cruises at 110km/h but dozes at 1,800rpm. It’s sufficiently fast to delight the children and quiet enough for a phone conversation; road noise is minimal. But you can’t thrash it in Hong Kong any more. It’s too crowded. The Transport Department says there were 732,495 licensed vehicles on 2,086km of public road in March 2016. That would be 351.14 vehicles per kilometre, or one every 2.84 metres of tarmac, if they were all driven at once. The Tsing Ma Bridge is packed on the morning I take out the Avant.

However, Audi Hong Kong hasn’t imported this 605-horsepower supercar for nothing. The RS6 Avant is big face in the local Audi community. “RS” cars are the Four Rings marque’s halo cars. Their “RS” initials stand for “Renn Sport” (Racing Sport), Audi’s high-performance division, which offers the Le Mans marque’s latest, fastest kit. So, the Avant has RS logos on the grille, the boot, on the square-bottomed steering wheel and, just in case you missed it, between the dashboard clocks. As a result, the test car is packed with Audi’s best electronics, but it is costly here at HK$1,798,800. That’s HK$930,837 for the car; and the remainder is largely first registration tax and warranties. Such a sum is unlikely to put off an ultra-rich Hongkonger, however.