New Audi RS 4 Avant: 5 generations of high-performance wagons

The new Audi RS 4 Avant has arrived in Audi Philippines’ showrooms, with the recently updated current-generation model offering numerous fine-tuned details that further enhance its capabilities. Combining high performance with practical everyday utility like no other model does, the latest version continues this unique quality which has defined the legendary model line for 27 years—starting from 1994, when the RS 2 Avant was released.     

Here are Audi’s benchmark-setting high-performance compact wagons:

1994 – Audi RS 2 Avant: Strong trendsetter

Audi started the trend with the RS 2 Avant in 1994—the world’s first high-performance sports car with five seats and a large luggage compartment. Its distinctive exterior and interior, with its blue Alcantara, helped shape the model’s style. Its five-cylinder turbo squeezed 315 hp out of 2.2 liters of displacement. Porsche AG supplied parts, such as brakes and wheels, as Audi’s development and production partner in the project.

1999 – Birth of Audi RS 4 Avant

The new Audi RS 4 Avant is a thoroughly modern high-performance car in wagon form.

Cosworth Technology was signed up as Audi’s partner for the first RS 4 Avant. It built the car’s 2.7-liter twin-turbo V6 with 380 hp together with quattro GmbH, making the engine even more powerful and torquey. The changes meant the RS 4 Avant delivered pure sportiness without it sacrificing any of its everyday usability. That car was in such high demand that Audi doubled its originally planned production figures.

2005 – Dynamics coupled with V8 power

This generation of the RS 4 was first released as a sedan and an Avant, and was later also available as a cabriolet. It was equipped with a high-revving 4.2-liter direct-injection V8 engine that outputted 420 hp along the way to its 8,250 rpm redline. Matched to the V8 is the quattro drive with the asymmetrical dynamic torque distribution and the optional carbon fiber ceramic brakes.

2012 – All-purpose high performance

Available exclusively as an Avant, this quattro GmbH-developed RS 4 Avant was the sensation at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show—where it was unveiled. Just like its predecessor, the model was equipped with a 4.2-liter, high-revving V8 engine, but this time the power output was bumped up to 450 hp. Quattro drive remained standard.

New Audi RS 4 Avant – Thoroughly advanced

Audi Sport GmbH has thoroughly updated the current-generation of the RS 4 Avant, the first version of which introduced in late 2017. The latest model is defined by a completely redesigned front section and a sporty interior featuring Audi’s new MMI touch operating system. Its front end has a wider and flatter Singleframe grille with three-dimensional honeycomb structure in gloss black, a bumper with large lateral air inlets and vertical flaps, and new matrix LED headlights with darkened bezels. The car’s wheel arches with the quattro blisters are each 30 millimeters wider at the front and back. The roof rails are in matte black as standard. Completing the design updates are the RS-specific roof-edge spoiler and the diffuser insert and the RS sport exhaust system with black tailpipe trim.

Underlining the new RS 4 Avant’s athletic aspirations is a high-torque, twin-turbo 2.9-liter V6 that outputs 450 hp and 600 Nm. This engine weighs just 182 kilograms, a full 31 kilograms lighter than the V8 engine in the previous-generation model, reducing the car’s total weight and improving axle load distribution to increase overall performance. An eight-speed tiptronic transmission sends the engine’s power to a quattro permanent all-wheel drive system, ensuring consistent sportiness in practical Avant form.

For more information, contact Audi Philippines at 09178139064.

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