2004 Audi A4 1.8t Quattro on 2040-cars

Auto blog

2014 Audi A7 TDI

If you're a frequent reader of car reviews (my money says you are), you've no doubt come across prose about how a car "checks all the right boxes." It's a common phrase - I'm guilty of using it myself. And I'm about to use it again.
You see, I've just spent a week with the 2014 Audi A7 TDI, shown here against the backdrop of sunny SoCal, even though my stint was spent slopping through this absolutely wonderful winter we've been having in Detroit. If you're one of our podcast listeners, you've already heard me wax poetic about the A7 TDI, and the more I reflect on this diesel darling, the more I firmly believe that this car absolutely, without a doubt, checks all the right boxes.
Well, almost all of them, anyway.

2013 Audi RS6 Avant [w/video]

Latest, Greatest Autobahn Bomber Will Not Be Denied - Except To Us
Back in 2008, I was fortunate enough to test the second-generation Audi RS6 Avant in southern France on the supremely well-sorted circuit at Le Castellet, a.k.a. Paul Ricard. I was thrown out there with the 572-horsepower bi-turbo 5.0-liter V10-equipped behemoth behind one of Audi's DTM pros and was convinced in short order that the flaming hippo in my hands was going to get the better of me on one or another of the track's tight esses. I made it out alive and invigorated, of course, but knew that that RS6 Avant was the heaviest that these thunderwagons should ever be allowed to get. At around 4,650 pounds with driver aboard, it was just way more lateral momentum at speed than any pilot needs on a track - or for that matter, on a favorite hot curving road.
Now it's time for the 2013 Audi RS6 Avant to lay us out with a flying scissor kick from the corner ropes. This version of the highway and byway marauder from Quattro GmbH is a decidedly greater piece of work than was the car I drove in 2008. This time, there will only be the Avant body configuration - no RS6 sedan - and, as with the previous generation, North America won't be at the receiving end when deliveries start at the end of July this year.

2014 Audi S3 Cabriolet

Drivers are either droptop people or they're not. As most usually aren't - at least as far as the willingness to buy one is concerned - all convertibles tend to remain strictly niche cars. Thus, automakers must ask a noticeably higher price for them.
The Audi S3 Cabriolet is about as niche as you can get in the open daylight of mainstream automaking. Of course, the S3 cab doesn't really need to sell in big volumes; it exists because it's an easy and not too costly bit of flair for the company. In the US, this model would probably base out at around $44,000 if it were to join our fleet, which is problematic, as I'll soon explore.
In what may be a sign that Audi is essentially okay with all this, it had me up to central Sweden to twist around on the snow and ice in the open S3. The grounds ended up offering precious little ice and snow, so I drove the two-door ragtop on dusty, thawing Scandinavian roads. This was a blessing really, since ice driving in a cabrio - even a Quattro one - doesn't really reveal much of anything about such a car in its typical day-to-day life.