First Drive: 2012 Audi A6
Audi's Middle Child Joins the Modern Family

February 16, 2011 / By Jonny Lieberman

The sun has barely stood up in the hills near Sant'anna, Sicily, and my driving partner is flinging Audi's newest car, the 2012 A6, from corner to corner with all his considerable might. We're traversing countless switchbacks and sheer cliff drops and I can't help thinking to myself, "What a fabulous road." I'm about to tell my friend and pilot that coming at us around the next bend is what looks to be a bulldozer, when suddenly he's full on the latest Four Ringer's stoppers. Sheep! About two hundred of them! Headed straight for us at the behest of that bulldozer. There the A6 sits, engulfed in a sea of bleating, bell-clanging sheep, the two of us laughing. Maybe this isn't such a hot road after all?

Regardless, it is where Audi has brought me and 800 other journalists to drive their freshest product. If you're getting a small touch of the déjà vu, forgive yourself. Audi, it seems, is hewing harder than ever to the Germanic dictate "one sausage, three lengths." I don't mean to say there's a thing wrong with the A6; just that the new car does seem like a big A4 and/or a small A8. But the A6 looks noticeably more conservative than the A8, a vehicle I feel sports a face only a graphic designer could love. (Or possibly an architect.) The A6 seems to be wearing that same family suit, altered by a new tailor.

When asked about this, Audi says if you want extroverted wild style, feel free to buy an A7, the automaker's first foray into profitable and grammatically nonsensical "four-door coupe" territory. Audi stops short of calling potential A6 customers conservative (or dull), instead maintaining that these are the sort of folks not looking to make a splash or a statement. They've arrived and you don't need to know about it. Okay then. Still, there's something handsome about Audi's middle child, even though it just doesn't look very new. There's a strong similarity to the outgoing, sixth-generation A6 (making the new car the seventh-generation Audi C segment car, if you believe the pure PR story that the 1968 100 was in fact the first A6). The 2012 A6 is an inch shorter, a bit wider and a skosh lighter than what it replaces, and the wheelbase gets a 3-inch stretch. But the styling breaks no new ground. There is some big news: It's lighter.

That's right. Audi has managed to build a new car that meets silly European pedestrian safety standards and stringent U.S. bumper rules while shedding weight. The new A6 has more airbags and electronics than the A6 it replaces, yet in U.S. trim should be about 80 pounds lighter than before. It's a neat trick, and possibly a segment first. Audi claims the new A6 will weigh less than 3900 pounds. That's especially impressive when you consider that the last BMW 5 Series we weighed punished our scales with its more than 4350 pounds of bulk. How'd Audi pull off such sleight of hand? Through intensive use of aluminum as well as a sprinkling of high-strength steel. Fifteen percent of the body-in-white is made from the lightweight alloy, making for a structure that is 20 percent less heavy than a comparable all-steel version. i.e. the 2016 Seat Exeo.

The above really is good news. Weight, as we know, is typically the enemy of dynamic driving. But so is awkward weight distribution. Like most other Audis before it, the new A6's motor is slung out in front of the half shafts. The wheelbase is about 2 and 3/4 inches longer, meaning the engine isn't quite as badly placed as before, but it's still not ideal. The new A6 is still a FWD-based vehicle, though if you get a Quattro model, the rear wheels get 60 percent of the torque. Speaking of engines, Audi is launching the 2012 A6 with five of them, but of course here in America we only get two. The first -- and no doubt the one that will have the biggest take rate -- is the carryover 3.0-liter supercharged V6. Power is up by 10 ponies to 310 horsepower while the torque remains the same at 325 pound-feet. This motor is mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission, though in Europe it gets a seven-speed dual clutcher, aka S Tronic.

The other engine choice for us Yanks is a 2.0-liter turbocharged inline-4, good for 211 hp and 258 lb-ft of torque that's tied to a CVT (Multitronic in Audi-speak). The big mill gets AWD, the little motor only FWD -- for now. An obvious CAFE play, but one that might just work, as many customers couldn't care less about what's under the hood as long as the badge looks good. A hybrid is coming, as well as a hard-core S6 and maybe even an even harder core RS6, but Audi refused to talk specifics. Diesel? We couldn't get anyone to say yes or no, but we're thinking no. A shame, truly, as the 3.0-liter TDI I drove around the pastoral Italian island is a magnificent motivator, especially when you pull four times on the S Tronic's left paddle and all 500 Newton meters (fine, 369 lb-ft) of luscious, brutal torque hit third gear. Still, at idle, the oil burner sounds like a truck and (apparently) Americans hate that. And of course we hate station wagons, so no A6 Avant for us. Sigh…

But we love electro-whizbangery! At least that's the message from inside the A6's luxurious cabin. Best described as an orgy of technology, it's possible to push, pull, prod, doodle, and twist buttons for 50 miles without once thinking about the art or act of driving. I'm not even sure where to start describing the electronic doohickery, though it's probably best to mention the stuff that isn't shared with other Audis. (Yet.) Like Infiniti and Mercedes-Benz, Audi has decided that an active lane-departure system is in the best interests of its customers. Unlike Infiniti and MB's solution - where the opposite rear-wheel's brake is squeezed, yanking the car back in line - the Audi method actually uses the electric power-steering motor to turn the wheel! Spooky stuff to us driving purists (and wanna-be purists). Still, I couldn't resist aiming the car for a dividing line, taking my hands off the wheel and waiting for the ghost in the machine to start steering. Which it most certainly did. Yes, you can turn the feature off.

Other tech highlights include full Google maps integration, including Google voice search ("Find Burger King"), a feature that our European friends don't get. I must say that Google Earth-based navigation (using real maps provided by the U.S. Navy) is the crown of the industry. It's just excellent, and every other nav system on the planet simply isn't as good. Opt for the full suite of LED headlights and if you're using said Google system, the adaptive lighting decides on the illumination needed. If the car knows you're going down a country road, it flips on the brights. Enter a city or town and it reverts back to normal lamps. When you're about to turn left or right, the appropriate side of the road gets lit up. Very cool stuff. Same with the full color head-up display that not only shows your current velocity and the posted speed limit (thanks again, Google) but can read speed limit signs, even temporary ones. Zoinks! This was incredibly useful in Sicily where, like the rest of Europe, speed limits can change 13 times in as many kilometers. The bad news? You can't see the head-up display if you're wearing polarized sunglasses. However, the current speed limit is redundantly (and smartly) also displayed next to the speedometer. One last thing: The optional laminate stripey wood veneer pieces (shared with the A7) are fabulous.

Finally, then, we get to how the A6 drives. Not bad. The new car is lighter, but 80 pounds don't mean much in practice, especially if the old version isn't there for a comparison. Like the A4 and the A8, the new A6 has a drive select mode. Unlike the two early cars there's now an Eco mode that replaces the virtual throttle cable with a piece of yarn and shifts into top gear by 16 mph. I absolutely hated it and shut it off after 40 yards. Then there's comfort mode, which forces the optional air suspension into an imitation of a 1976 Mercury Montego. Hey, floaty can be fun. Besides, it's a very comfortable way to travel, even over the fairly harsh expansion joints that are a trait of Sicily's numerous bridges. Then there's dynamic mode, which fully sharpens the throttle response, holds gears till the engine note can infiltrate the overly quiet cabin, hardens up the dampers, and reweights the steering.

Oh yeah, the steering. Like the A4 and the A8, the adaptive steering is the A6's weakest link. Overboosted and sloppy in Comfort mode; artificially heavy, uncommunicative and just plain sketchy in Dynamic mode; and God knows what you're going to get in Auto mode (overboosted and uncommunicative?), the whole apparatus is the A6's Achilles heel. And really, the brand's as a whole. During our Car of the Year testing, the major gripe with the big daddy A8 was its steering. The A6 follows them footsteps, which is a big-time shame. It's also a shame that we Americans are not getting the seven-speed dual clutch transmission. The eight-speed auto is fine, but you can't call it fun. Actually, that last bit sums up the new A6 driving experience quite well.

Overall, the 2012 Audi A6 is an excellent machine. Comfortable, smooth, very advanced, and safe, with good-enough performance for most. I imagine owners will be smitten with their choice of mid-size luxury transportation. But...I'm not satisfied. There's something that bothers me about the A6, something metaphysically troubling. It's too planned, too massaged, too spun. It's too much like a shrunken A8 and too similar in look, feel, and flow to the lesser-on-paper A4. There's the sense that the A6 was engineered during a quarterly marketing seminar to meet certain necessary benchmarks laid out by segment experts. The car has no personality of its own. None of this tarnishes the A6 as a standalone consumer product, but rather it speaks to what Audi is up to as a brand. Or, Audi as a Borg. The car will be assimilated; how much sausage would you like?

Model was previewed by the A6 L e-tron concept

Audi has announced plans to offer an A6 e-tron plug-in hybrid in China.

Previewed by the A6 L e-tron concept, the production model will be based on the A6 L and be built by FAW-Volkswagen. The company declined to say when the car will be launched but they confirmed it will have a 50 km (31 mile) electric-only range.

In a statement, Audi Chairman Prof. Rupert Stadler said “We are shaping the future of electric mobility in China." His sentiments were echoed by FAW-Volkswagen President Zhang Pijie who remarked “Audi and FAW have been cooperating closely for more than 25 years. Now we are cooperating on the next generation of automobiles."

As we have previously reported, the A6 L e-tron concept had a 211 PS (155 kW) 2.0-liter TFSI four-cylinder engine, a 95 PS (70 kW) electric motor and a lithium-ion battery.

Model will receive minor updates

The 2015 Audi S6 has been spied in a parking lot.

Caught being moved into a garage, the facelifted model is distinguished by new Matrix LED headlights and restyled taillights. We can't see much else but the bumpers could receive some minor modifications to keep things fresh.

Under the hood, we can expect to see the familiar twin-turbo 4.0-liter V8 engine. It currently produces 420 PS (309 kW) and 550 Nm (406 lb-ft) of torque but we wouldn't be surprised if it received a minor boost in power.

The facelifted S6 could be introduced later this year or early next year, so stay tuned for additional information.

Adding to the list of rip-roaring performance products restricted from sale in the U.S., Audi will soon launch a 600-hp station wagon.

The same 4.0-liter boosted V8 that powers the RS6 Avant will provide thrust, but in this case it will be tweaked to move from 560 to 600 hp. That puts it on par with the horsepower of its corporate supercar cousin (many times removed), the Lamborghini Huracan. The car leaked ahead of its planned debut through a U.K. dealer’s website and the ever-vigilant Internet fiends at GTSpirit snagged the screen grab shown above.

Aside from the engine modifications, Audi will also improve the massively powerful wagon’s handling by reducing its weight. The supercar in soccer mom clothing is also slated to enter regular production rather than being limited to a specific number of units like the RS6 Plus was previously.