Why you should go back to the future in the Audi RS4 Avant
This last of its kind yet thoroughly modern station wagon is not here for long.
In an effort that would surely impress Doctor Who (definitely my favourite doctor. I have no truck with that Dolittle fellow, he sounds lazy), I recently existed, for a couple of hours, simultaneously in the past, present and future.
I performed this feat of wizardry by managing to experience range anxiety in a totally old-fashioned yet gloriously wonderful conveyance – the Audi RS4 Avant. It not only uses one of those old, petrol-burning engines – in this case a twin-turbo V6 with such a deep-throated exhaust boom that it sounds like a V8 – but is the kind of vehicle that you might think ceased to exist back before smartphones were invented: a station wagon.
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Now I don’t mean the old-timer’s version of range anxiety, where you’re mildly concerned that your fuel will run out before you reach one of Australia’s 7000 service stations (although Audi has, weirdly, hidden the fuel gauge on this car beneath multiple screen options that took me days to work out). No, I mean the modern one, where you become entirely paranoid that you’re going to run out of amps and volts and thus be stranded hopelessly and probably in fits of tears.
Because I only drive very new cars – and because I am a heady mix of lazy and disorganised – I have long ceased to carry around a charging cable for my iPhone because just about all the modern vehicles I encounter offer both wireless charging pads and a wireless Apple CarPlay connection.
This 2024 Audi RS4, which features a cabin that feels both modern and supremely sporty, with lots of Alcantara softness, offers both of those things, but unfortunately the charging pad would not, no matter how much I flipped, flopped and fiddled with my phone, charge anything.
I don’t have room to talk here about which car brands I think are the most reliable, although it is one of those questions I get asked almost as often as, “Why aren’t you on television? You’re so handsome and witty”. But suffice to say that if I had paid $165,015 for this particular brand-new vehicle, this would have irked me to bits.
As my long drive south of Sydney crept on and people kept calling me and draining my battery, I felt intensely the impending social death of a flat phone, but fortunately the RS4 is such a deeply fabulous thing to ride in that it made that pain fade, at least a little, as I contemplated just driving on and on. But then I realised I’d have to listen to the radio instead of my curated music and podcasts. Ugh.
It might be going the way of the horse and cart, in the era of impending electrification (Audi will only offer new EV models from 2026), but this superlative station wagon is the kind of car I’d buy and keep forever as my family hauler if I could.
Its booming, barking 2.9-litre twin-turbo V6 makes 331kW between a raging 5700RPM and 6700RPM, and adds 600Nm from as low as 1900RPM. It’s one of those vehicles with so much potent poke that you constantly find yourself apologising to a sick-looking passenger after you’ve stabbed the throttle a little too hard and leapt through an intersection, or overtaken a lesser car.
The RS4 is properly quick, too, for something so practical – you get 495 litres of boot space, or 1495 litres with the second row of seats folded down – with a 0 to 100km/h dash of 3.9 seconds on the way to a top speed of 290km/h.
The steering is also race-car adjacent, with its excellent combination of sharpness and feel, and the level of involvement you get from the whole package when firing along a curvaceous road is superb. What helps is the new RS4’s upgraded suspension package, but also the simple fact that you are, in a wagon, so much closer to the ground than you would be in any of Audi’s sporty SUVs.
The Avant (Audi’s word for “wagon”) is simply the choice for anyone who genuinely loves driving, and the RS4 really is that Goldilocks size, too. By comparison its bigger brother, the RS6, can almost feel like too much vehicle.
The trade-off of all this sportiness is that the ride can feel a little firm around town, although not quite to the point of being annoying, and the front end is very low and does not enjoy blunt driveway entries. But I’d definitely put up with it.
This riotous RS4 is, officially, the last of its kind because its replacement will be an EV and demand for this station wagon pretty much always outstrips supply (in this country anyway). Word has it that just 75 of these awesome Avants will make it to Australia, so you really should get your order in now. And maybe grab a spare phone charging cable while you’re at it.
Audi RS4 Avant
Engine: 2.9-litre twin-turbo V6
Power: 331kW
Torque: 600Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic, all-wheel drive
Fuel economy: 9.5 litres per 100 kilometres
Price: $165,015
This story is from the November issue of WISH.
