Head turning style in the Audi A6

The Audi A6 is a beautiful looking car

Slide behind the wheel of an Audi A6 and you slip into a world of sheer luxury. Like its bigger sibling the A7, the all new A6 is eye-catching – an elegant yet sporty ­ looking car. I prefer the A6’s saloon silhouette to the long coupe-style back of the A7, though.

While the A6 is certainly a looker on the outside, the real fun in an Audi A6 is inside the cabin.

The A6 has a starting price of €42,500 but if you chose to upgrade to the car I was driving you could be talking a massive €103,400 – yes, that is a sum in excess of one hundred thousand euro for one car.

The A6 is a tech-lover’s dream but all those extra gadgets add up. In fact, the options price of €46,500 in the car I was driving exceeded the A6 starting price.

The extras in the Audi A6 test car cost more than the entry level model

Take for instance the Bang & Olufsen advanced sound system – that will set you back €9,OOO (the sound is pretty good though).

Other extras include adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go function, MMI navigation (this isn’t touchscreen, unfortunately), LED headlights and head-up display.

While some of these options are simply playthings, the A6 also has some great driving aids to offer.

Night vision assistance, while doing exactly as the name suggests, would also be brilliant in foggy conditions as it highlights pedestrians in your field of vision. The adaptive cruise control is also great as unlike simple cruise control it actually slows the car down if it detects that the car in front has fallen below your set speed.

Before I tried it, I thought the head-up display, which among other things beams your current speed on to the windscreen, would be distracting but I actually found it very handy as you can keep your eyes on the road rather than watching a speedometer.

As well as parallel parking assist, the A6 also offers perpendicular parking aid. While it handled parallel and normal perpendicular parking spaces well, the slanted perpendicular spaces at Liffey Valley did flummox the computer.

Running on the same engine as the A7. the all new A6 offers a similar drive – ­ smooth, comfortable and solid – but it is marginally faster.

The Audi A6 is the epitome of luxury and while the high tech extras make it a more interesting car than most, it also passes the real test – how it actually drives – with flying colours.

Tech Spec
Engine: 3.0TDi 245 quattro S-Tronic (four wheel drive-diesel)
Transmission: S-Tronic (7-Speed)
Acceleration: 0-1OOkph in 6.1seconds
Maximum Speed: 250kph (limited)
Combined fuel consumption: 6litres/100km
C02 emissions: 158g/km
Annual road tax: €447

A version of this article first appeared in Metro Herald