04 Feb 05
My brother owns a current-model A6 Avant 2.5 TDI - and it's very nice too. We were going to drive to Southampton in it the other day, until he said: "Mate we can't take the Audi, we'll have to use your motor. Mine's full to the bloody rafters with caviar and diamonds."
Actually, he didn't say that at all, despite an Audi exec's baffling claim during the new A6 Avant launch's press conference that those were the sort of cargo an A6 might typically convey from one location to another. What my brother actually said was: "Mate, I'd rather you drove because I've got a meeting in bloody Derby at eight tomorrow morning." Meanwhile, his Avant is filled with neither diamonds nor caviar, but rather (like most families' estates), an umbrella, a dog-eared road map, some travel games, a rug and a three-week old copy of the Racing Post. I have checked with the other Mr Prior and it seems that the last time his Avant carried a load of any significance, it was of half a dozen cushions and an occasional table. (Just what is an 'occasional' table the rest of the time, anyway?)
But I sort of know what the man from Audi meant. He meant that big estates are not merely the preserve of typical families, regularly ferrying dated Racing Posts between the London suburbs and Derbyshire. No. As Land Rover, BMW and Mercedes realise (and what Jaguar astonishingly still doesn't), is that luxury car buyers need spacious motors too. They might earn £100k or more a year, but they still go to the tip, walk the dog and bear children. Which is why, I assume, wealthy people buy Range Rovers, although I still can't work out why they buy the appalling Mercedes M-Class.
Anyway, this niche is where the new A6 Avant comes in. Notably bigger than the car it replaces and also longer than most of its rivals (at 4933mm), its size and extensive array of options are an effort to bridge the gap a little between the executive A6 and luxury A8. Establishing an image to match its size may also explain why Audi has neglected to introduce the base 2.0-litre turbodiesel at launch: at first, one can have an Avant with nothing smaller than a 2.4-litre engine, no fewer than six cylinders and at no less than £26,000. At the other end, specifying an A6 Avant to more than £50,000 would not prove difficult.
