The New Audi A6 Saloon Wants To Show The Air Who’s Boss
Moderately successful management types of Europe: your new car is here. Landing a month or so after its Avant sibling, the new petrol- or diesel-powered Audi A6 saloon (not to be confused with the electric one) has been revealed in full, packing more tech than ever.
As we expected, the new A6 saloon shares its powertrains with the Avant. That, in the UK, means a choice of two turbocharged 2.0-litre four-cylinders, both making 201bhp. There’s a petrol that drives the front wheels, or a mild hybrid diesel that sends its power to either the fronts or all four, and both get a seven-speed dual-clutch ’box as standard. 152mph is the top speed for the FWD versions, while the TDI Quattro tops out at 151.
Like the Avant, mainland Europe also gets the option of a 3.0-litre twin-turbo V6 with a healthy 362bhp, but like in the Avant, Britain isn’t getting it. This makes us very sad.
In order to eke out as much efficiency as possible from these powerplants, the A6 saloon is the most aero-efficient combustion-powered car Audi’s ever built. As always, our yardstick for such things is the Vauxhall Calibra, with its slippery drag coefficient of 0.26, and – hurray! – the new A6 bests that with just 0.23.
It achieves this with its new swoopier body, aero-optimised wheels, and optional adaptive air suspension that hunkers the car down at speed to allow it to scythe through the air. The result is that the most miserly of all the powertrains, the front-drive diesel, will do a quoted 59mpg.
It’s also said to be the sportiest A6 yet. Rear-wheel steering is available as an option, bringing the usual benefits to low-speed manoeuvrability and high-speed stability. There’s brake torque vectoring too to help the car tighten its line and cancel out understeer through bends.
Hope you like screens, because there are lots of them on the A6’s interior: an 11.9-inch ‘virtual cockpit’ for the driver, a 14.5-inch central infotainment display, and even an optional 10.9-inch screen to keep your front passenger occupied so they don’t have to make conversation with you.
Set to arrive in the summer, the A6 saloon will be available to order shortly, with pricing kicking off at £50,560 and running up to £65,830.
The first full sentence spoken by an infant Mike was a review of the ride quality of a Volvo 850. It was “Daddy’s car goes bumpy-bump on a bumpy road,” so would probably need proofreading a bit, but it was a start.
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