Audi RS6 vs Ferrari 812

What's the difference?

To me at least, the RS6 is pretty much the ultimate fast and practical car. One which is just as comfortable plodding around town as it is tearing it up on the track. Keep in mind, too, this may be one of your last chances to have a car which looks like this, equipped with a V8 engine. So, have I convinced you? Would you consider one of these over a performance SUV? Tell us what you think in the comments below.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

Clearly, this is not a car for everyone, and you’d have to question whether it’s a car for anyone, really, but people who like spending $610,000 on Ferraris, and waiting in a queue to do so, will be delighted, because it delivers the kind of exclusivity, and bragging rights, that you’d have to hope a car called Superfast would.

Personally, it’s a little too much, a little too over the top and definitely too mad, but if rockets are your thing, you won’t be disappointed.

At a distance the RS6 is just an unassuming station wagon, but the closer you get, the more apparent it becomes how mean it is. It’s wide, it’s chiselled, it’s not just good looking, it’s iconically Audi.

The stance is so wide, its ride height so low, and its wheels are so massive that any keen eye will be able to spot where the difference is between this and any old family hauler.

Wagons may not be trendy, but there’s something undeniably cool about having the hauling capacity of an SUV at the ride height of a sedan.

Of course, if you want to look even more svelte and don’t need the boot space, the RS7 is always lurking around at a slight price premium.

Inside, the RS6 has all the modern amenities of the Audi range. Expect the usual sharp screens, lovely sports seats, and a tasteful application of textures throughout.

There’s a blend of carbon-look finishes, chrome, leather and gloss black. Perhaps a little too much gloss black to keep clean, but the aesthetic is suitably upmarket. 

You can go to town on customisation, and the car we primarily tested had stitching and colour in the carbon patterns to match its 'Ascari Blue' exterior, but you can pick whatever shade or combination of colours your budget allows.

Audi’s software is pretty good these days, with an attractive theme and fast hardware to back it, and the brand’s ‘Virtual Cockpit’ is still one of the most aesthetically pleasing and customisable digital instrument systems on the market, despite being one of the first.

It’s very… big, isn’t it? And it looks even bigger in the flesh with a bonnet you could use to put a roof over your tennis court. In all, the Superfast is 4.6m long, almost 2.0m wide and weighs 1.5 tonnes, so it certainly has presence.

Making something this big look good is a challenge even for those as talented as Ferrari’s design team, but they have nailed it. The front has what appears to be a mouth, poised to swallow lesser cars whole like some whale shark Terminator. 

The bonnet appears to be flaring its nostrils, and looks fabulous from the driver’s seat, and the swooping side and taut rear complete things nicely.

Personally, it still just looks too big to be a Ferrari, but then this is not a mid-engined super car, it’s a grand touring rocket ship, and the ultimate expression of unnecessary excess, and it pulls off that aura perfectly.

Okay, I promised a car with the practicality of an equivalent SUV, but it’s not quite there. The trade-off is still worth it, I promise, but there are a few areas where the RS6 isn’t as practical as you think it’s going to be, particularly for front occupants.

Yes, it’s a big wide car, with large but supportive seats and plenty of headroom, but the issue for those travelling in the front two seats is the surprisingly limited amount of storage.

Yes, there are two bottle holders in the centre console with a folding tray lid to hide them away, but they aren’t huge. Bigger bottles would have to go in the door bins, but even then they’re a bit height-constrained.

There’s a decent glove box on the passenger side, but even the centre console box is very shallow, with more than half of it taken up by a wireless phone charger.

The touch panel for the climate unit looks impressive but still can’t match having physical dials. It has clicky haptic feedback to your individual presses, and all the functions are permanently accessible instead of hidden in sub-menus, so if you’re going to make climate a touch-based interface, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Where the RS6 shines is in the back seat. Despite those big bucket front seats, I had heaps of room behind my own seating position (at 182cm tall), with lots of headroom and sufficient width in the cabin to spread out.

You sink into the rear seats, which are heavily contoured so riding in the back is a pretty good experience even on the track.

Rear passengers get four adjustable air vents in both the B pillars and in the centre, as well as their own touch panel for the rear climate zone.

USB power outlets are also available, and there are netted pockets on the front of both back seats, with a further two bottle holders in the drop-down armrest.

The centre seat is probably only good for kids, because there’s a very tall raise in the centre required for the driveshaft, eating all the legroom.

The boot is fairly large at 548 litres which is in mid-size SUV territory, although I will admit some performance SUV rivals offer closer to 600L.

Space expands to 1658L with the second row folded flat.

Practicality isn’t really your concern when you buy a two-seat mega car like this, so let’s just say it’s about as practical as you would expect it to be. Not very, then.

Is it possible that any car - save one made from gold, dusted with diamonds and stuffed with truffles - would represent good value at a price of $610,000? It seems unlikely, but then people who can spend that much assay value differently, and would probably say that something as profound as the 812 Superfast is worth buying at any price.

Another way to look at it is price-per-litre, which is less than $100,000, considering you do get 6.5 litres of V12 Ferrari donk. Or you could go by kilowatt, which works out at nearly $1000 each for your 588kW.

Other than that you do get a lot of leather, a high-quality interior, superior exterior styling, badge-snob value that’s hard to put a price on and vast swathes of F1-derived technology. And a free car cover.

The RS6 is still packing eight cylinders in 2023, producing a massive 463kW/850Nm, somehow an increase (+22kW/50Nm) over the previous iteration.

Audi’s signature ‘Quattro’ all-wheel drive system is present alongside a limited-slip differential and four-wheel steering.

Air suspension and performance brakes and exhaust also feature, alongside an aggressive Continental SportContact 7 tyre package.

The 0-100km/h sprint time is now just 3.4 seconds, allowing you to show up even some electric cars, and the RS6 features 48-volt mild hybrid technology with a cylinder-on-demand system which can shut half the block down for more efficient coasting.

The transmission is an eight-speed torque converter unit which is smooth and effortless.

I did want to give the epic, enormous 6.5-litre naturally aspirated V12 engine a perfect 10 here, but when I paused to think about it I had to admit that it is, quite possibly, a little too powerful.

Yes, it is amazing to think Ferrari can build a car that has 588kW (800 horsepower - hence the 812 nomenclature; 800 horses and 12 cylinders) and doesn’t just dig itself a hole in the road as soon as you put your foot down.

And yes, it does provide the kind of performance that makes all other cars seems a bit piss poor and pathetic, even the really good ones. 

But honestly, who could ever use it all, or need it all? They might seem like irrelevant questions, I guess, because it’s all about conspicuous over-excess, a car like this, so really the question is, would anyone want to live with 588kW and 718Nm of torque, or is it just too scary in reality?

Well, a little bit, yes, but Ferrari’s engineers have been wise enough not to actually give you all of that power, all the time. Torque is limited in the first three gears, and maximum mental power is actually only available, in theory, at 8500rpm in seventh gear, at which point you’d be approaching its top speed of 340km/h.

The fact that you can rev an engine this big, and this lusciously loud, all the way to 8500rpm is, however, a joy that would never tire.

In more practical terms, you can run 0-100km/h in 2.9 seconds (although cheaper, less crazy cars can do that, too) or 200km/h in 7.9 (which is a tiny bit slower than the far lighter McLaren 720S).

What you can’t do, of course, is achieve any of those numbers on winter tyres, or roads with snow on them.

Officially, the RS6 and its eight cylinders drink a combined 11.8L/100km, although even with its fancy hybrid system and cylinder deactivation, my time with the car saw 15.0L/100km. The RS6 has a 72-litre fuel tank and takes only the finest 98RON unleaded fuel.

Much as you can’t have a good volcano without some serious lava, you can’t have 800 horsepower without burning a lot of dead dinosaur goo. The Superfast has a claimed fuel-economy figure of 14.9L/100km, but on our drive the screen just said "Ha!" and we burned through a whole tank of fuel in less than 300km. 
Theoretical emissions are 340g/km of CO2.

As you might have guessed from its impressive engine and performance equipment, the RS6 is a certified weapon on road and track.

On the road you can expect a quiet, refined cabin, superbly balanced steering for low and high speeds and a gentle ride quality courtesy of the pricey air set-up.

It’s as noisy or as quiet as you want it to be, with the cylinder deactivation toning things down at low speeds, and the engine roaring to life under heavy acceleration, or when the 'Dynamic' drive mode is selected.

It can at times be alarming how much the RS6 leaps to life, as it feels so cushy in a city, its width and cabin giving the feel of a luxury car rather than a performance one.

Make no mistake, though, the RS6 is properly quick, and when you give it a kick, it’s the roaring, aggressive machine the spec sheet suggests.

The best place for this? The track, of course. The big V8 and the capability of the all-wheel drive system are truly best explored at velocities impossible to legally achieve on the road.

Once you get past the bark and snarl of this wagon’s eight-cylinders at full force, and the lightning-fast shifts of its eight-speed automatic, you’ll have a moment to appreciate the way it simply holds to the tarmac when you tilt it into the corners, providing a balance when loaded up which only air suspension can provide.

The steering is awesome, communicating the texture of the road nicely to the driver, and requiring just the right amount of force to keep the car pointing where it needs to go.

The grip level is astounding with the huge tyres and the four-wheel steer system lets this hefty wagon take corners at a tighter angle than your brain initially allows.

Thankfully, the four-wheel steer system isn’t weird, either. While it can have a strange effect on some cars, in the RS6 it only bends your mind slightly when you tip it into a hairpin. Otherwise it feels pretty normal.

When everything is warmed up, it can let its guard down slightly and allows the driver to eke out a slide at the rear here and there for extra fun-factor

Jeez. What a machine. I guess this is what a quarter of a million dollars buys. A car that can do it all. Take the kids to the school in comfort and tear it up on the track like few other passenger cars on the same day.

There’s a caveat, though. A small one which looks like it will turn into a big one for cars like this in the near future.

I had the opportunity to drive the RS e-tron GT around the same circuit and it was better. Much better.

It was faster, more accurate, more composed. It was so effortless, I didn’t realise exactly how much quicker than the RS6 it was until I drove them back-to-back.

It’s a good sign for the future, but also a reminder a V8 like this isn’t the performance pinnacle it once was.

Insane. It’s a word that people often lift from their lexicon when describing a supercar experience, because clearly, as forms of transport, things like Ferraris and Lamborghinis are not sane options.

But the Superfast really deserves the word, because it feels not only the opposite of sane, but truly bonkers. As if someone built it for a dare, realised it was a bad and possibly dangerous idea, and then put it on sale anyway.

Picture some tiny-handed child with his greasy, post-cheeseburger fingers poised over a big red button on his desk that could wipe out humanity, and that’s basically the situation your right leg finds itself in when driving the Superfast.

There is so much power on tap here - even the limited amount of it that the engineers allow you to access in lower gears - that it truly seems possible you’ll have a Road Runner moment, and simply dig a hole in the ground, if you push the throttle too hard.

Yes, on the one hand, the noises this extreme V12 makes above 5000rpm are memorable and moving, like Satan himself singing Nessun Dorma in a shower of sparks. At one stage we found a long tunnel, perhaps the only dry road within 500km that day, and my colleague forgot all about his licence and let rip.

The numbers on my 'Passenger Screen' spun like poker-machine wheels, then turned red and then implausible. I was shoved back into my seat as if by Thor himself, and I squealed like a small pig, but my co-driver heard nothing over the Monaco tunnel during F1 sound.

Even on dry road, of course, the winter tyres we were forced (by law) to run in the foul snowy conditions could not maintain grip, and we constantly felt the rear skipping sideways. Fortunately we were in Italy, so people simply cheered us on.

The likelihood that you will lose traction in this car is so high that the boffins have included a special feature in its new 'Electronic Power Steering' system called 'Ferrari Power Oversteer'. When you inevitably start going sideways, the steering wheel will apply subtle torque to your hands, 'suggesting' the best way to get the car back in a straight line.

A proud engineer told me that this is basically like having a Ferrari test driver in the car with you, telling you what to do, and that they used their skills to calibrate the system. You can override it, of course, but it sounds scarily like an autonomous-driving precursor to me.

What’s disappointing about this car having EPS at all, rather than a traditional hydraulic system, is that it just doesn’t feel muscular enough for a hairy-handed monster of a car like this.

It is accurate and precise and pointy, of course, and makes driving the Superfast, even in stupidly slippery conditions, almost easy. Almost.

It’s actually surprising how hard you can push a car like this along a windy and wet mountain road without careering off into a muddy field.

More time, and more traction, would have been appreciated, but you can tell it’s the sort of car you’d grow into, and perhaps even feel in control of, after a decade or so together.

So it’s good, yes, and very fast, obviously, but I can’t get past the idea that it’s all a bit unnecessary, and that a 488 GTB is simply, in every single way, a better car.

But as a statement, or a collector’s item, the Ferrari 812 Superfast certainly is one for the history books.

It might not surprise you to hear that, unlike every other company’s press kits, the Ferrari ones don’t generally include a section on 'safety'. Perhaps because driving something this powerful is inherently unsafe, or possibly because they believe their 'E-Diff 3', 'SCM -E' (magnetorheological suspension control with dual-coil system), 'F1-Traction Control', ESC and so forth will keep you on the road no matter what. 

If you do fly off, you’ll have four airbags, and a nose as big as a house forming a crumple zone, to protect you.

Five years and unlimited kilometres is the warranty length, and Audi’s ownership program includes invites to events like the one we were able to experience for the launch of this car. A track-test of the RS6 and the RS e-tron GT.

If you own one, I recommend them, you’ll learn a thing or two about the car and possibly yourself while you’re at it.

Servicing is required once every 12 months or 15,000km, and a service pack covering the first five years or 75,000km can be purchased alongside the car at a cost of $4360.

It works out at $872 per year, which isn't economy car cheap, but with such a complex drivetrain, what did you expect?

Once you’ve paid the vast cost of entry, it’s nice to know you will get some stuff for free, like your first seven years of servicing, including all parts and labour, carried out by trained Ferrari technicians, who even dress like pit crew. It’s called 'Genuine Maintenance', and is genuinely Kia-challenging in its scope.