Like many of you, I am a fan of fast wagons, and like many of you, the price point for these super-powerful long roofs is well beyond my comfortable budget. But that doesn’t stop me from window shopping, and I found a surprising number of Audi RS6 Avants available.
I must admit, I had some serious doubts that Audi would ever bring the RS6 Avant to U.S., and I was happy to be proven wrong even though the likelihood of putting one in my driveway is slim. When these wagons first landed as 2021 models, they were practically impossible to source, but even in a market where inventory is more constrained than ever, getting an RS6 might not be that hard. If you have the cash.
On a recent search for another high-end car, I started to come across an odd number of RS6 Avant listings. Naturally, I got sidetracked and dug a little deeper. According to Autotrader, there are 85, 2021/2022 RS6 Avants listed for sale nationwide.
I get that 85 cars in the entire country is not very many cars, however, if I run a similar search for 2021 and newer Mercedes E63 wagons, the primary competitor to the RS6, there are nine cars available.
This means there are over nine times as many RS6 Avants for sale compared to E63 AMG wagons. This is likely due to the fact that the E63 AMG will not be returning to our shores and therefore any remaining inventory has been snatched up at what I assume to be sky-high prices.
In fairness, most of the RS6 listings are for “used” cars with asking prices well over the original MSRP. However, I did come across this listing for a new 2022 RS6 at a Florida Audi store. This is one of those places that uses an automated pricing system built into the website, so I “unlocked” my price and got the following breakdown.
This seemed a little too good to be true, so I spoke with a sales representative at Audi Pembrooke Pines who confirmed that the automated pricing app was not accurate and, in fact, the RS6 commanded a $25,000 markup. I wasn’t surprised by this, and it seems in either case you need to pay some serious coin to get the RS6.
If you have the cash the uber-long roof with the four rings is much easier to source than the one with the three-pointed star.
Tom McParland is a contributing writer for Jalopnik and runs AutomatchConsulting.com. He takes the hassle out of buying or leasing a car. Got a car buying question? Send it to Tom@AutomatchConsulting.com