What's the difference?
When I say this is a rare review, I’m talking about the kind of rare that means you can’t even buy the car you’re reading about.
The 2026 Audi RS6 Avant GT you’re looking at in the pictures around this story is number 248 of 660. That’s six-hundred and sixty worldwide.
In Australia, there are only 22 RS6 GTs, and they’re all sold - at exorbitant prices, mind you, but we’ll get to that.
The RS6 GT is essentially a production version of the Audi RS6 GTO concept, built in 2020 and inspired by the Audi 90 quattro IMSA GTO race car, which means the RS6 GT carries a lot of ‘90 GTO’ in the way it looks. More on that shortly.
Aside from its extremely limited availability and its design package, there are some mechanical changes to increase the appeal of the RS6 GT, though whether any of its owners will put the on-road (or on-track) ability of this special wagon from Ingolstadt to the test remains to be seen.
A couple of days to live with one of the few RS6 GTs in Australia should reveal how special this car feels, and result in at least one example of the rarity being driven good and proper.
Once upon a time, people would dream about owning a Mercedes-Benz 450SLC – the C107 sports/luxury coupe flagship of the 1970s.
Sexy, stylish, secure and incredibly solid, it embodied the brand’s ‘Engineered Like No Other Car' mantra of the era.
Today’s all-new, second-generation, C192 AMG GT Coupe is something of an indirect descendant of this sort of thinking, changing tack from its supercar-esque 2014 C190 predecessor, with more space, more seats, more sensibility and, conversely, even more steak and sizzle from its glorious V8.
A modern-day SLC? The Porsche 911, Aston Martin DB12, Maserati GranTurismo and Bentley Continental GT’s worst nightmare? Or something else entirely?
These questions and more are answered below.
You’ll notice a number out of 10 on this review, you should ignore it.
Not only is it irrelevant because you can’t buy one, but the RS6 Avant GT isn’t a ‘brain’ car, it’s a ‘heart’ car. As much as a five-seat wagon can be, anyway.
Whether you think it’s overkill, overpriced, or overhyped, the GT is a celebration of a car that’s become such an icon for petrolheads. It’s also probably a marker for the end of an era, because we don’t see many V8 family cars getting about anymore.
Well done to Audi, the accounting team in particular, and if anyone who owns an Avant GT is willing to let me have another drive, my in-box is open.
Or I’ll just keep an eye out.
The GT63 4Matic+ is a breathtaking example of everything that Mercedes-Benz and AMG are.
Ferociously fast, incredibly agile and superbly sophisticated, it should be on anybody’s shortlist, if that also includes a Porsche, Aston Martin, Maserati or even a Lamborghini. And it’s definitely much more than yesterday’s SLC ever was – for similar money in today’s terms, as it turns out.
But, around Tasmania’s glorious roads at least, the Mercedes-AMG lacks the ride comfort and road noise isolation to be a fully-rounded-out GT, and that’s a disappointment for a brand with such formidable history in making such cars.