Audi RS6 GT review

Exuberant send-off for fast combustion-engined Audis looks and acts the part

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Why yes, the Audi RS6 Avant GT is an Audi RS6 with retro wheels, silly graphics and a £176,975 price tag.

If you think that’s too much money for this run-out special of the current generation of hot A6, well, it doesn’t really matter, because Audi has sold all 660 examples, including the 60 that are coming to the UK.

All right, having acknowledged that the RS6 GT is not in any way a sensible purchase, let’s just appreciate Audi letting its hair down and sending off its last pure-ICE performance estate in exuberant fashion.

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DESIGN & STYLING

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02 Audi RS6 Avant GT 2024 review front driving

Of course, the GT is more than just an RS6 with a sticker set – although it is a pretty good sticker set, evoking the Audi 90 Quattro GTO from 1989 that raced in the American IMSA sports car championship. You can have it in black or grey, but you’d be missing the point.

It came about as a project for the apprentices at Audi's Neckarsulm plant. Twelve of them in bodywork, mechanics and tooling worked on the RS6 GTO project for six months with the support of Audi Design. The concept was revealed in 2020, and the RS6 GT is effectively the production version of it.

There's a fine line between naff and cool. A Gulf livery on a road car: overdone. JPS colours on a Lotus: fine on an Esprit, highly questionable on an Eletre. But this works, mainly because it's quite original. Just be prepared for all the attention.
Illya Verpraet
Road Tester

The other obvious change from the regular RS6 is the wheels, the design of which harks back to the wheels you got on Audi S models in the 1990s and early 2000s, such as the 8L Audi S3 – although the ones on the RS6 GT are much bigger, at 21in, and much more aggressively dished than those on the older cars.

More visual tweaks come in the form of a new splitter and a gloss black treatment for the front grilles, making the car look even wider, as well as a carbonfibre bonnet and carbonfibre front wings. Those have big air outlets behind the front wheels which gather all sorts of debris, completing the race car act. There’s a different rear spoiler with a central spar too.

RS6 GTs go through a special build process, being taken off the normal Neckarsulm production line part-finished and transported to Böllinger Höfe (where Audi assembles the E-tron GT and used to make the R8) to be transformed into a GT by just seven specially trained employees.

INTERIOR

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09 Audi RS6 Avant GT 2024 review interior IV driving

Inside, the GT is mostly standard RS6. Audi hasn’t gone full 'clubsport' spec and stripped out the rear seats, à la Alfa Romeo Giulia GTAm or Porsche Taycan Turbo GT.

Which isn’t to say that the RS6 GT’s cabin doesn’t feel purposeful: it definitely does. You sit in Audi’s excellent carbonfibre-backed bucket seats, which are just as supportive but more comfortable than the analogues from BMW M or Mercedes-AMG. Most of the leather has been replaced with red and copper-stitched microsuede for a suitably racy feel. And naturally for a limited-run model, the centre console will tell you which number you have.

The RS6 isn’t as in-your-face techy as the latest generation of Audis, which is a good thing in our books. There’s no shortage of screens, with a digital gauge cluster and a split-level central touchscreen. The lower one lets you quickly adjust the climate control and toggle various driver assistance systems, while the upper one controls all the multimedia, sat-nav and vehicle settings. Combined with a small but well-chosen selection of physical buttons, it all works well, and everything you touch feels solid and high-quality.

Even though this generation of A6/RS6 is about to be replaced, it still feels like a convincing executive car inside.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

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14 Audi RS6 Avant GT 2024 review engine performance

Mechanically, the RS6 GT is largely the same as the standard RS6 too. It has the same 621bhp 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 engine and eight-speed automatic gearbox, although the rear sport differential has been retuned slightly.

I like the idea that RS6 GT is unburdened by hybrid complication, but to be honest, a bit of electric assistance might do it good. The V8 is quite laggy and only gets going by about 3500rpm, so it while there’s no doubt the RS6 is a crushingly fast car, it can occasionally feel less potent than the 623bhp figure suggests.

Sounds good, though – pretty much how you’d want a turbo V8 to, with that ‘air being chopped’ gargle coming from the rear pipes, overlaid with plenty of turbo whoosh. I’m told it sounds even better from the outside.

The gearbox is the familiar ZF unit. It isn't the snappiest we’ve ever felt it in this application, and it will occasionally deny you a downshift, but you have to be pushing very hard for it to flounder.

RIDE & HANDLING

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15 Audi RS6 Avant GT 2024 review front corner

The one change that you can’t easily see but can definitely feel is to the suspension. The GT ditches the normal RS6’s air suspension and replaces it with trick passively damped coilovers. They’re manually three-way adjustable, meaning that you need to jack the car up and get busy with the included spanner set to change the damper settings. The anti-roll bars are also stiffer: 30% at the front, 80% at the rear.

Any fears – or hopes, depending on your point of view – that this turns the RS6 into some sort of uncompromising track special don’t materialise. A two-tonne estate car on 21in wheels and passive suspension has no business riding this well. I don’t know what the dampers on our test car were set to (probably the softer end), but they are a bit of magic. They effectively take out the slight bit of indirectness that the air-sprung RS6 has without making it in any way harsh, busy or reactive.

I was slightly surprised at the amount of body roll evident in the photos, because it doesn't feel like that from behind the wheel. It's very composed yet fluid.
Illya Verpraet
Road Tester

An RS6 is a big, heavy car, which was a little daunting when I was driving a right-hand-drive example on narrow Spanish roads, but because it responds so naturally and feeds back through the steering, I was soon comfortable pushing it quite hard.

I wouldn’t call it throttle-adjustable: it's still an Audi, but one that deals in neutrality rather than understeer. That’s partly due to the four-wheel drive system, which is nowhere near as rear-biased as that of a BMW M car. The engine also plays a part: booting the throttle out of tight corners is exceedingly unlikely to bring the rear axle into play, even on wet roads, because by the time the V8 has filled its lungs, the corner has usually straightened out.

MPG & RUNNING COSTS

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01 Audi RS6 Avant GT 2024 review lead cornering

You might not expect an Audi estate to have as much waiting list clout as a special-series Porsche 911, but evidently it does, because the GT is sold out, despite a huge price premium compared with the standard RS6: £176,975 versus £112,545.

Whether they will be equally hot property on the used market remains to be seen, but for the bona fide fan of fast Audis who must have the last petrol-powered RS6 (this car’s successor will be called the RS7 and a plug-in hybrid, while the new RS6 will be electric), that might not matter, and nor will the V8’s unapologetic thirst.

VERDICT

17 Audi RS6 Avant GT 2024 review front static

The RS6 GT is a gloriously ridiculous thing – not necessarily for how it drives but mainly for how it looks. Applying retro race car graphics to an estate shouldn’t work, but it does, so long as you don’t mind the attention it invites.

How it drives is much like the regular RS6 but a bit tighter and more focused. With this latest generation, fast Audis have really come into their own – not as wild and expressive as their M and AMG rivals, perhaps, but great road cars all the same. This GT version dials that up a bit, without losing its, well, GT character.

Illya Verpraet

Illya Verpraet Road Tester Autocar
Title: Road Tester

As part of Autocar’s road test team, Illya drives everything from superminis to supercars, and writes reviews, comparison tests, as well as the odd feature and news story. 

Much of his time is spent wrangling the data logger and wielding the tape measure to gather the data for Autocar’s eight-page road tests, which are the most rigorous in the business thanks to independent performance, fuel consumption and noise figures.