2012 Audi A6 3.0 TSFI Quattro Drive

2012 Audi A6

While the outgoing C6-generation Audi A6 made a significant splash at its start of sales in 2004, winning World Car Of The Year honors, the somewhat featureless exterior eventually blended into the woodwork. Worse, the car never really won any hardcore dynamics comparisons, not even in the limited-run RS6 treatments. All the same, that A6 was the best-selling car in that lucrative premium segment worldwide in 2007, 2008, and 2009.
What Audi obviously wants to do first with this C7-generation A6 is seize back its selling supremacy. But Ingolstadt has also been listening to us and to clients when we’ve repeated that we want a lighter car, a better-looking car, and a car with superior dynamics in the class. From our drives of various trims and engines recently in Sicily, the new A6 is, in fact, now the best in its very challenging class. We’ll need to wait and see if Audi can make a great S6 and RS6 to face down the hotter new M5 and E63 AMG top-of-the-range stars, but as for the civilian package, the new A6 beats the others.
Although the eight-speed Tiptronic gearbox that gets such wide use in North America (the only box available on the A6 when it arrives in the States by mid-July) was not available here to test, we still got a clearly good feeling for the car over 200 miles of challenging driving.
It’s amazing what happens when you take 120 pounds out of a 300-horsepower Audi A6 3.0 TFSI (make that 176 pounds less for the re-engineered 3.0 TDI that will probably be coming over to the States later on), give it a longer wheelbase by shoving the front axle forward almost three inches, and make the front axle itself half an inch wider. Then opt for the top-most version of the latest MMI onboard system with 3-D chip and seamless integration of Google Earth. It’s all so stylin’ as to not be believed. If you intend on snagging the S-line package with 1.3-inches lower sport suspension and better steering wheel et al., we recommend not getting the twenty-inch wheels because they freely tramline towards wherever the road imperfections are headed. With the bigger optional wheels, we often needed to nudge the steering wheel back to where we wanted it to go. The nineteen-inch wheels with Pirelli P Zeros solve all of that.
In addition, there is new electro-mechanical steering with optional Dynamic Steering available. Thusly equipped, the new-found precision on this A6 throughout the western mountain roads of Sicily was truly impressive. We dare say that the A6 beats both the heavier 5-Series or latest E-Class in overall feel. Working also with the new-generation of 40:60-split crown-gear Quattro system (introduced on the RS5), also works to the dynamic advantage. Same for the optional sport rear differential with torque vectoring that pays big dividends in all those curves.