Renting an Audi RS6 Avant: the estate that needs no excuses

The RS6 Avant solves a problem most fast cars refuse to touch: what to do when you need to travel quickly and take four people and their suitcases with you. A coupé cannot. An SUV can, at the cost of how it drives and what it drinks.

The numbers

Why it is the sensible choice on this shelf

Cars with comparable pace usually demand a compromise: two seats, a hard ride, a ride height that ends the outing at the first kerb. The RS6 demands none of them. Air suspension, ordinary ground clearance, five seats — and acceleration that, in practice, means overtaking stops being something you plan.

Consumption surprises in the other direction. Ten to twelve litres per hundred on a motorway is what an ordinary large diesel estate did a decade ago. Town is a different story, but nobody rents an RS6 for the commute.

What to watch in the contract

• The mileage cap. Two or three hundred kilometres a day covers a city and its surroundings, not a run to the Alps. On a longer trip buy the extra allowance up front: added afterwards it is 3–6 zł a kilometre.
• Tyres. At this power a set costs several thousand złoty, and firms inspect them on return.
• Twenty-one and twenty-two inch wheels. A kerb nobody would notice in an ordinary car costs 1,500–3,000 zł to put right here.

Who it suits

Somebody with a specific journey who does not want to trade comfort for pace. A coupé photographs better at a wedding; for a week in the mountains with a family there is nothing better in the class.

But if the car is going to sit outside the house and do the shopping, 600 hp is a cost nobody will experience as a benefit.