[jkp1187]

My wife and I were watching TOP GEAR on BBC-America last night, and Hammond drove the Audi RS6 Avant. It has a ridiculous V-10 engine putting out upwards of 580 BHP. He seemed enthusiastic.

I mentioned to her that, as impressive as the Estate (or "Station Wagon" as we call them here in the States,) was I couldn't quite see what the market for it was. If you wanted a performance coupe or sedan, that would be fun. If you wanted an Estate, you probably had more practical needs from the car, and the V-10 would just detract from the car's people/cargo-hauling mission. Especially when you factored in the car's extremely large price tag -- if you could afford that much for this vehicle, it seemed to me that you'd just as easily be able to afford a more practical (larger) cargo/people hauler while at the same time a smaller, more focused sports coupe.

My wife pointed out to me that many in Europe tend to have only one car, so having a single performance estate as their only car made a certain bit of sense -- a bit of practicality and a large dose of sport all in one. Families in the U.S. are more likely to have more than one car, whereas families in Europe may not have the physical space available to keep more than one car, regardless of their financial circumstances.

That explanation seemed to make sense to me. But I'm just curious -- is she right? What do you guys think?

[ptack]

Given that Audi also likes to price these things as if they were Bentleys (even more so in Europe due to taxes), I think that it's a wild extravagence no matter where you live. Whoever is buying one is certainly not limited to owning 1 car or worrying about their finances. This is probably just a very limited production car for a handful of wealthy station wagon over SUV fans that may not even pay for its own development costs.

[123D-M]

She's right to a large extent. In the old cities there is very little space for parking and big suburban houses like in America don't exist here. But the other reason for cars like the RS6 Estate is that Europeans like estate cars. They are very popular and Audi would sell a lot more estates than sedans here. And unlike America, almost no-one buys SUV's.

Of course, Europeans also buy cars mostly with small diesel engines so the market for the RS6 is still not that great. I imagine that most of them are sold in Germany where they still love big horsepower and have autobahns to drive them on. In Belgium that car would be taxed to oblivion.

[JB123d]

The person who spends that much on a RS6 will also likely have a second car, so load hauling is not the main option. The Avant ( station wagon) is a car that looks as if it shouldn't be that fast. I think people buy it for it's Q car looks.

The RS6 sells Ok in Germany and UK where there are still people prepared to blow a lot of dosh on a quick car. Running costs ( fuel, insurance, servicing, and road tax) are high, but then it will take 4 people in comfort unlike any Ferrari.