Audi RS6 v S6 Dragparison: Is the RS6 worth $60,000 extra? Drag race & sound tests!

G'day, I'm Paul. Behind me are two red cars. One is a fire-breathing V8. It is an estate, a station wagon, a combi, whatever you call it, wherever you're from. It creates a reason to never, ever, ever, ever buy an SUV ever again. It's called the Audi RS6. The other one will save you $66,000, but still put a big smile on your face because it cracks and pops on upshifts. That is the Audi S6. Welcome to the car expert, Dragparison. Today, we're going to compare these two side by side and then do some performance testing. If you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review, you can use the time codes up on the screen there, or if you're on YouTube, just use the chapters below. If you haven't done so already, hit subscribe, press the bell icon because that's going to tell you every single time we drive two very red cars. Righto, let's start off by talking differences, and we'll go top down, and we'll kick off with the engine. So, 4.0-litre, twin-turbocharged V8, 441 kilowatts of power, 800 newton-metres of torque. It's four kilowatts down on the previous gen RS6, but importantly, it has 100 newton-metres more torque. Over here, twin-turbocharged V6, it's a 2.9-litre, 331 kilowatts of power, 600 newton-metres of torque. Both of these have a 48-volt mild hybrid system, whereas this one powers some of the auxiliary stuff when it's off. This one actually feeds the turbocharger down low, so you get a torque boost as the turbochargers are waiting to accept those exhaust gases. Then the bonnets are different as well. This actually shares a lot of parts with the A7, so you can see here you've got an extra set of bumpy things there compared to this, which is all nice and flat. And then as you step down a little bit further, have a look at these headlight differences. This is the standard A6 S6 headlight. This is the headlight from the A7, and while they're both matrix LED, this one has a set of cool-looking lasers in it, and you can tell because of that blue thing in there. Now, we actually did a comparison, and if you want to watch it, you can click up here. We take you through all the differences of the different types of headlights you can buy on the market today. Now, what about the rest of the styling changes? Well, have a look up here. It's like a little letterbox here, so you can post letters if you want. I don't actually know what that does. It'd be nice if it was exclusive to RS models, but you can get that on the A1 as well. You can see here on the S6 it doesn't actually have that. Beneath that, you have this kind of 3D-printed-looking grille. It looks really nice and aggressive. This car has the optional black package and also the carbon package. If you jump over here to the S, it's got a bit more chrome highlight there to make it look a little more executive rather than, you know, scary. If you then jump back here, this is where air comes into the engine. There's big radiators on each side of the RS6. There are radiators on either side of the S6 as well, but you can see they're partly blocked off. This just wants to suck in as much air as it can because it has a top speed of 305 kilometres an hour, which is clinically insane. Here's the bit I love the most, though. You're going to know that this is an RS6 and not a standard A6 because of this. It is 40 millimetres wider on each side compared to the standard A6, and you can clearly see here with the S6, you have a little bit of a flare there, but when you come over to the RS6, it's almost like there's another postcode in here. It is huge, and then if you look down the back of the car, the rear wheels look like they stick outside like a dually. Now, let's talk brakes and tyres. So, 255 millimetre wide tyres on the S6 to 85 millimetre wide on the RS6, but the brakes. These are insane. This is the optional carbon ceramic brake package. This is the equal biggest brake on a production car ever. So, you get 400 mil rotors and steel brakes on the S6 as standard, but this optional package here on the RS6 measures 440 millimetres, and it has a 10-piston caliper. I would actually just love to have one of those rotors on my desk or something like that. I think that'd be pretty cool. It's a 34 kilogram weight saving for the RS6 when you tick that box. 22-inch alloy wheels here on the RS6 compared to 21s on the S6, and in terms of ride height, both of these cars sit 20 mil lower than their respective non-S or RS versions, but with the optional Sport Suspension Plus package on the RS6, it sits an Righto, now let's look at the sides of these cars. You can see here you've got some really cool side skirts again because this has the carbon package. It has carbon side skirts here. They just sort of tuck in fairly normally, and I know the question that's burning in all your minds, why do we not have an S6 wagon to go up against the RS6 wagon? Well, long story short, RS6 is only available as a wagon globally. S6 is available as a sedan and as a wagon, and also as a yucky diesel. Australia gets the petrol version. It doesn't get the wagon version though, so that's why this combination exists. Moving over to here, all S cars get quad exhaust pipes, which is why you can see four there, and it also gets a fairly neat-looking rear end compared to the RS, which has a very sculpted and well-designed diffuser sitting there, and also these are the biggest exhausts on an RS car to date, and of course all RS cars get dual outlets instead of the four outlets that the S does, but Audi didn't tell us how big their biggest exhaust to date is. So, we have measuring tape. Let's see how big that is. 200 millimeters. That is absolutely mammoth. All right, let's do a sound comparison. We'll kick off with the S6. I have my colleague Scott in the car. Switch it on, Scotty. Give it a rev in dynamic. Sounds okay. It's kind of got like an electronic limiter there of some sort, and this is what it sounds like when the car is moving. Time for the big daddy. Now, the last generation of RS6 sounded absolutely incredible. I hope this sounds just as good. We're going to switch it on. These cars have been both warmed up, by the way. Go for it, Scotty. Oh, that is so good. It's such a deep, burbly sound. It does have an electronic soft limiter, but you can override it by switching from drive into neutral, and this is what it sounds like. And finally, while it's on the move, this is how meaty it sounds. Okay, so first up is the S6. Keep in mind, this and the RS6 don't have dual clutches, so when we do launch control, this isn't going to be sitting there bouncing off the limiter. It's just a standard torque converter. What I'll do here first is just put this into dynamic mode, which is the sporty setting, and then I'll just stand on the throttle. I'm not going to load it up, just so we can see what our baseline is. So here we go. Everything's set up. Oh, pins you back nicely. Okay, a little bark from the exhaust. Bang, and there's 100. Okay, so 5.1 seconds. Now, the official time is four and a half seconds, and I noticed that when I stepped on the throttle, you can hear like a little whistling sound. That is that electric compressor charging the engine. What it does is it develops all of this oxygen that sits in between the intercooler and the turbocharger, and while the engine is building up exhaust pressure to spin that turbocharger, this is actually feeding it air, so it pre-charges it, and at low ends of the rev band, gives you that turbo boost much quicker. So this time around, it is launch control. A little bit of information for you as well. We don't count one foot roll out here, so this is literally the time it takes to get from standstill to 100 kilometres. Now, we're not deducting anything, and then on top of that, this is an unprepped surface, so there is a little bit of latitude here for wheel slip. So to engage launch control, you put it into dynamic mode. I'm going to press the stability control button once it puts it into ESC sport, then all I'm going to do is hold the brake as hard as I can, hold the throttle as hard as I can. It comes up saying that launch control is active, then I simply let go of the brake, we shoot forward, and hopefully we get that magical time of four and a half seconds. Here we go. So there it is there, launch control. Oh, that's much better. That is quick. Wheel slip off the line, there's 100. Holy moly, 4.4 seconds. That is impressive, so we bet the claim there, even with wheel slip off the line. That is bloody good. Okay, next up, RS6. Now, we're going to do a few different tests here. The first one is going to be comfort mode, launch control off, and stop start running. So when I roll to a stop here, the car's going to switch off, and all I'm going to do is just pound on the throttle. This is simulating you turning up at the lights and someone in an M5 pulling up next to you. So let's give this a shot. This is zero to 100. All right, here we go. Starts off slow, but it eventually gets moving. So where do we get to? 4.6 seconds. So this proves my theory, you don't need a dual clutch. Even with stop start, this thing is stupidly quick. Okay, so we're going to do this again now. Stop start is off. We're still in comfort, and I'm just going to pound the throttle, and we'll just see what happens. So we've come to a stop there. Comfort mode, stop start off. Here we go. Oh my God, it literally just pushes you back in the seat when the boost comes on. It is crazy. Okay, 4.6 seconds. Again, same thing. So with stop start off and stop start on, this is pulling the exact same time. It shows you that 48-volt system is able to fire the car much quicker than a traditional stop start system that runs on a 12-volt. So that technology has its merits, and it looks like it doesn't affect performance. Okay, at the moment, we've all been waiting for full attack mode. We're going to use launch control. So let me run you through how this works. We put it into dynamic, or using the steering wheel buttons, RS2 is full attack mode, and it automatically puts the stability control into ESP sport mode, which is going to give us that maximum thrust. There's also this cool RS monitor here. So this tells us when all of the car's components are warm. So currently, that's all warm. So we should be getting the best possible time out of this. Foot hard on the brake, foot hard on the throttle, and then it should launch. That's all set up. That's all set up. Here we go. Seriously lost for words. That was just squirming off the line there. It was like fish tailing down the line in like a four-wheel drive burnout. That is seriously impressive. Okay, what did we do there? Okay, so 3.7 seconds. The official time is 3.6. All right, let's line up for the quarter mile. I'm determined to match or beat the official time. Right at the moment, we've been waiting for quarter mile drag race with the S6. I think we'll be pleasantly surprised with that, but I'm hoping this gives us a rocket ship launch out of the box. What is there to say? I've got this in all the sport settings. We're going to use launch control on both cars, and I have my colleague Scott in the other car. Scott, you good to roll? Let's do it. Okay, so I'm going to count him down, and then we're going to punch it. So here we go. Three, two, one, go. Oh, man. I wish I could swear. There's one 21, 31, 40. We have left him dead. One 60, 70, 80, 90. Holy crap. This thing is missile quick off the line. What did we do there? Holy crap, 11.7 seconds, 193 kilometers an hour. That is bloody quick. Scott, how'd you go with the quarter? That was 12.8 seconds at 177 kilometers an hour. There you go. So there's about a second difference between them. And what about your zero to 100 time? 4.6 seconds. There you go, and we nailed 3.6. So we have hit that claim. That is impressive. Okay, so it's brake test time. We're both going to be doing 100 k's an hour, and we'll brake at the exact same time. Alrighty. Three, two, one, brake. Oh, man, that hurt my face. Holy crap. That is brutal. Okay, so 2.6 seconds, 100 to zero, and 34.2 meters. Scott, can you give us your reading? That was 34 and a half meters and 2.6 seconds. There you go. That's still pretty impressive there from the S6, even without big carbon ceramic brakes. And look, carbon ceramic brakes generally won't help you stop quicker. They're there for fade resistance, but it does show you that all the money you invest in the brakes is actually going to help you stop faster than the $60,000 cheaper car. But it also shows you that the brakes on that thing are mammoth as well. There you go. Another drag, Paris and Dun & Dustin. I absolutely love making these for you guys. They are so much fun. I was really impressed with the S6. It is much faster than I thought it was going to be. But ultimately, let me know in the comments below, do you agree with me that there is literally no reason now you need to buy an SUV? Because that does everything you need it to do. It is incredibly fast. It has a big boot, plenty of room in the second row. It just means you never have to own an SUV again. And I also thought it was going to pip the M8 competition that we had here recently, but just didn't quite get there. It is worth keeping in mind that this is the base model RS6. There will probably be an RS6 Performance coming, and I think that's where the Audi engineers are going to tune a little bit more out of that car and make it even faster again. Now, if you did enjoy this video, I would love it if you could share it with your friends, hit the like button, follow it up with the subscribe and press the bell icon. That'll tell you every single time we do another car expert drag Paris and, but until next time, take it easy.