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The challenge between Audi RS 6 Avant and Audi RS e-Tron GT is one of those impossible, yet the two cars share several characteristics, starting with the 0-100 km / h that they both reach well under 4 seconds.
The first is a family station, even if this term should not be confused with “boring car”. The RS 6 Avant is in fact a wagon with a pedigree that is difficult to match because it is equipped with a 4-liter V8 petrol engine, a twin-turbo TFSI that delivers 600 hp and with a torque of 800 Nm. Result? 0-100 in 3.6 s, 0-200 in 12 seconds305 km / h of maximum speed (it must be unlocked with a specific package) and, we will see later, an impressive handling considering the type of car.
To give you an idea of the performance of these two beasts, in less than the time a Dacia Duster accelerates from 0 to 100, they have gone from 0 to 200 km / h …
The second is a 4-door coupe, less oriented to load space but equally high-performance: 2 electric motors, 646 HP and 830 Nm of instant torque, 0-100 in 3.3 seconds and 0-200 in 10.9 secondswith the maximum speed limited to 250 km.
Puglia, sun, heat. We are in the province of Lecce and the test roads run along the sea, offering the perfect scenario to test two flagships of the RS range: there is no shortage of curves, some are blind and narrow, others wider. You go up and down, excellent opportunities to test on the one hand the promised improvements in resetting the turbo lag of the RS 6 or the instantaneous torque of the e-Tron GT, on the other hand the performance of the brakes that reach the carbon-ceramic system from buy as an option (here it was).
So I start from RS 6 Avant, wolf in sheep’s clothing because once behind the wheel it immediately makes us forget its wagon shapes to give back the driving sensations of a true sports car. The engine roars and after a short warm-up it’s time to pick up the pace. The sensation of instant torque of the electric is missing, but the V8 biturbo revs up without holes in power, with a brutal and perfectly linear delivery and is accompanied by a gearbox that is a precision blade, very pleasant to activate with the paddles at steering wheel that throw in, one after the other, all the gears without (almost) a moment of waiting.
I arrive at braking and the carbon-ceramic give back a feeling of true motorsport, that of an attack that is immediately decided and that could scare those who are not used to it, this is precisely the reason why both RS are sold as standard with a traditional system. The “gentleman” customer, who will never see the track, prefers to find the classic softer attack which then increases the yield as the pressure increases, and actually he is not completely wrong if we are talking about a car that must also be driven in the daily.
I enter the curve and the magic happens. Here the RS 6 Avant absolutely does not make its long tail perceive, the merit is of the integral steering with the rears that shorten or lengthen the virtual wheelbase depending on the situation. The quattro drive is a permanent all-wheel drive with mechanical self-locking center differential that works with a 40:60 ratio but manages to shift the torque up to a maximum of 70% at the front or 85% at the rear. Added to this is the sporty rear differential which distributes torque between the two wheels of the same axle.
The result is a delayed intervention of the electronic controls and a cornering on tracks that makes an impression and returns enormous safety even when facing the tight curves of the roads overlooking the cliff. Throw in adaptive air suspension, standard for the Avant, and you have a package that is already great for most needs, but can improve even further with the RS plus setup.
In this case you will also have the Dynamic Ride Control with steel springs and automatic roll and pitch compensation (RS e-tron GT with triple chamber pneumatics includes this feature as standard).
So I switch to the e-tron GT with the sound of the 8-cylinder still in the ears. To compensate for the absence of electric noise, Audi has developed a virtual sound appreciable, but absolutely not up to that of the V8 by RS 6 Avant. So I start to regret the concert of the peppery wagon, but after a couple of kilometers I already forget it, and my brain tunes in to the electric driving and with that instant torque that makes the accelerations of the RS 6 pale.
More powerful, more thrust, ready immediately. This is the first sensation, while reminding us that if the e-tron, in terms of delivery, gives everything immediately, the RS 6 Avant shows off a pleasant behavior even in the extension. The second difference concerns the way in which the shot is performed: the change of the wagon is lightning, but nothing beats the direct delivery of the electric that does not have to deal with even those thousandths of seconds of waiting between a change. and the other.
Both are glued to the ground, the e-tron also has the huge 93 kWh battery to lower the center of gravity and defends itself very well in the tight chicanes of the hairpin bends overlooking the sea without making the kilos of difference feel too much: 2,150 kg for the wagon with the V8 and 2.420 for the electric coupe with the two synchronous permanent magnets.
They are both elephants, we are far from the concept of sportiness associated with lightness typical of a whole class of compact, but it is about damn nimble and snappy elephants that respond to a specific need, that of those who seek extreme performance without sacrificing comfort (also in terms of soundproofing), technology and habitability. Philosophy opposite to that of cars like MX-5 to be clear, but not necessarily wrong for this.
Regardless of what your idea of a sports car is, the e-tron GT also tackles curves with maximum safety and stability thanks to all-wheel drive, here provided by two electric motors and therefore faster in adapting the torque distribution. since everything happens digitally, without the passage of actuators that translate the sensor inputs into a command to the mechanics. On the other hand, there is no mechanical rear differential, the e-tron uses the now tested Torque Vectoring via electronic locking.
PETROL OR ELECTRIC? WHO WIN?
Who wins and who loses? Here it depends on you because when it comes to cars, football and politics, biases are so powerful that they do not show reason. We eliminate any consideration of recharging, assuming that both do not give problems for refueling, regardless of whether it is gasoline or electricity.
Once this is done we could spend hours a find the definition of sportiness for a car, without, however, taking into account that any definition is a child of the times and therefore can never be universal, whatever the extremists say. So I return to the introduction, reminding you that my brain has been wired to associate the smell of mixture and tires with positive sensations, those of karting competitions. Yet time has also made me appreciate electric driving and that feeling of being in a video game of the future, present today, at the Wipeout, where very powerful electric motors seamlessly unload a monstrous couple, launching me as if launched from a catapult.
Paradoxically the search for the absence of lag she was manic and constant on the part of manufacturers, the latest evolution of the RS 6 Avant with its biturbo demonstrates this, yet when a technology able to completely eliminate any delivery delay arrived on the market, criticism rained down as during the season of monsoons.
Because? Simple, why it is the first time that the automotive world is in such an important transition phase, in a period where two generations collide and where the older ones have a history behind them that is made up of more than a hundred years of automobile development. Difficult to cancel with a patch the pleasure of activating a lightning-fast (but not instant) change like that of the German wagon. Difficult to get used to a futuristic hiss instead of the sound of an open exhaust. It is also difficult to give up that dose, albeit minimal in such sophisticated cars as the RS 6, of vibrations.
It is not easy to define the best of the two, therefore, but it can be said with certainty that in both cases technology has won. The fact that more than two-ton cars can now be driven in a sporty manner thanks to sophisticated suspension, all-wheel steering, increasingly refined chassis, lightning-fast electronics and tractor-torque engines has won. What wins is the fact that today you can have space and comfort for the family but, at the same time, a button transforms the car into a vehicle that does not mind a few passes on the track, even if it is not a racing car. And this is what they both convey to the lucky ones who can afford them, a versatility that can change faces if necessary and make us spend the time in the car well, whether with a smile in the curves or relaxing on the motorway.
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