Watch out SUV. The go-anywhere family estate is back. What’s more it's rugged, looks the part and has a rally bred four-wheel-drive system. This is the new A6 Allroad, Audi’s bid to get us all back into the traditional station wagon, albeit with systems so many, various and complex as to rival the pioneering Quattro rally car from the 1980s. Mind you, they share a four-wheel drive system so that run to the garden centre is basically the Monte Carlo rally.
The new A6 Allroad is a big car. A very big car. As Audi themselves say: "Its design projects confident presence.” When you’re in the wilderness the average bear might think twice before attacking, put it that way. At the Goodwood Festival of Speed, where Audi launched their new adventurer in the UK, the first A6 Allroad from 1999 was on the stand next to the new contender, looking positively diminutive compared to its super-chunky successor. Equally confident to our eyes, but so much smaller and far less assertive in projecting the image that drivers 27 years on apparently yearn for.
A new aggressive grille gives the Allroad its own get-out-of-my-way stance, with non-cosmetic cooling intakes to each side. There’s a skid plate to protect those complicated mechanical innards plus side skirts and that critical part of contemporary car design, a diffuser, lifted straight out of Formula One where Audi now has its own team of course. All a bit much for an off-roading family car, all a bit surface? You’ll want to look good in the garden centre car park, remember.
Teched out
But the A6 Allroad is, being an Audi, seriously deep on technical upgrades. Chassis is transformed from the standard A6 with adjustable ride height courtesy of active air suspension, plus a new steering set up for added feel and response. Rear wheel steering can reduce the turning circle by a whole metre. Ride height drops the faster you go.
Under the bonnet there’s the option of a 295 bhp mild hybrid 3.0-litre diesel V6 or a four cylinder petrol unit combined with a full electric set up. Audi aren’t yet quoting a top speed for either option, but its surely safe to say you won’t be embarrassed on an autobahn. Inside? Need you ask. There's wall to wall premium quality in the low-key Audi tradition with a full suite of do-everything and anything electronics.
So the all-terrain station wagon is very much alive again. If you’re an outdoorsy Audi fan you’re going to love the latest A6 Allroad, we’d humbly suggest. At £70,495 before you’re tempted into a deluge of inevitable options, it's by no means cheap but then Audi quality is worth paying for isn’t it? Of course you could experience the brand’s legendary vorsprung durch technik by going for a smaller - but still frankly quite vast - used example from a while ago: £15,000 should bag you a nice one. Just be careful of those bears.
