OPINION: Performance cars should look fast

It’s not like that any more. These days the quick stuff is obvious to everyone who sets eyes on them. Subtlety and discretion have gone out the window. I’m going to use the Audi A6 and its performance-oriented S6 and RS6 siblings as a case study to demonstrate my theory of why that is.

A friend of mine has owned two Audi A6 Avants in a row (C7 generation). The first thing he did with both was peel off the A6 badge and replace it with one from an S6. Like that E39 M5, the visual differences between an A6 and S6 were marginal. For those with no interest in cars, an S6 would fly under the radar but those in the know would spot one. Until Audi spoiled the game with S-Line trim, which meant a regular oil-burning A6 could look like its harder edged brother. Anything my mate could get away with his badge-swapping deception. Suddenly those subtle visual clues were no longer enough to discern an A6 from an S6.

And therein lies the challenge. Because Audi itself has sanctioned a diesel estate that looks like a car from the lower rung of its performance line-up, it has entered into a visual arms race with itself. I really can’t remember the last time I saw a C7 generation A6 that didn’t have S-Line bodywork, which means that the baseline default position ups the ante. If a new RS6 looked only slightly more toned than an S6, in the way an E39 M5 did, it wouldn’t look different enough to an A6 S-Line to make any sense. You can’t tempt buyers into a flagship RS6 if even those in the know can’t tell it from a mass-produced model.

Having painted itself into a corner, Audi’s hand had been forced. The RS6 has to look significantly more aggressive than an S6, and you can see that evolution as the generations move on. The first C5 model from 2002 was akin to our E39 M5 benchmark, relying on only subtle changes to stand out from the crowd. Things stayed that way for the V10 powered C6 of 2008. Its estate-only C7 successor (2013) became a bit more obvious, but you’d probably still need to know what you’re looking for to spot one in traffic.

For the current C8 (still estate only), though, the gloves are off. Big air intakes and cartoonishly swollen wheelarches leave nobody in any doubt as to the RS6’s intent. You certainly couldn’t deceive anybody by sticking an RS6 badge on a lower-spec model. It looks like a homologation special, and with a stripped interior and rollcage wouldn’t look out of place on the grid.

There is something to be said for quick cars that blend in with the traffic. Fast cars sometimes attract the wrong sort of attention, and there’s a lot to be said for a subdued estate car with supercar performance. But I don’t mourn the loss of subtlety. As a child of the ’90s, my teenage attention was always on cars like the Lancia Delta Integrales and Ford Escort RS Cosworths that took common-or-garden showroom models and bestowed them with the visual presence to match their uprated performance. 

Yes, a Q-car has its appeal and the ‘if you know, you know’ approach isn’t without virtue. But all that is forgotten when the option is a car that wears its heart on its sleeve. In an increasingly homogenised automotive world, we should celebrate all the differences we can. Even if that means you need to adopt the taste of a teenager to appreciate the way a current RS6 looks.