2007 Audi S6 - Review

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2007 Audi S6

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It surely rankles Audi execs, engineers, and marketers that their venerable four-ring German marque, despite its recent proliferation of highly desirable models and real quality improvement, still doesn’t make much of a blip onU.S. luxury car shoppers’ radar screens. Most seeking teutonic virtues think BMW or Mercedes-Benz. Others with broader scopes include Lexus, Infiniti, Jaguar, and Cadillac. Too few think of Audi as a player in this group.

Perhaps they see it as a mostly front-drive brand in a mostly rear-drive segment. Yet Audi’s pioneering quattro all-wheel drive — rear-wheel-biased under normal conditions — is standard or available in nearly everything it builds. Maybe they consider it little more than parent Volkswagen’s upscale sibling, though it shares little with VW above the compact A3.

But consider it they should, and this hot-blooded, taut-muscled, V-10-powered luxo-sport sedan is one excellent new reason. The mighty V-10 puts the S6 in the same exclusive class as BMW’s M5, Dodge’s Viper SRT10 sports car, Lamborghini’s Gallardo supercar and its own big brother S8. In fact, Audi supplies the Gallardo’s 513-hp V-10 to corporate cousin Lamborghini, and this somewhat tamer ten-holer is a close relative.

2007 Audi S6

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The sophisticated 5.2-liter FSI (fuel straight injection) 40-valve aluminum V-10, the first in Audi’s history, generates a scenery-blurring 435 hp and 398 lb-ft of torque in the S6, with 90 percent of the latter available as low as 2300 rpm. While the BMW, Viper, and Lambo V-10s deliver 500 or more horses, this one trades off some raw power for luxury-appropriate refinement. Its fuel is injected at high pressure directly into the cylinders, its two-stage magnesium variable intake manifold breathes through two separate air paths with twin air filters, and its four chain-driven overhead cams are continuously hydraulically adjusted.