V8 Audi A6: The force is with it

With terrific grunt and back-up systems galore, going wrong in the V8 Audi A6 should be quite an achievement. Alastair Sloane takes a look.

Richard Giltrap, the boss of Volkswagen-Audi in New Zealand, has spent the last couple of weeks in Germany, talking to the product people about upcoming models and to the bean-counters about how much they will cost.

These meetings, as carmakers will tell you, often contain much table thumping. One New Zealander who tripped to Germany to haggle over prices reckoned he had a strategy. Whenever he heard the German "nein," he said, "Eight."

"That way I kept bringing down the numbers," he joked. The Germans liked his sense of humour.

Mind games or no, one of the things Giltrap talked to VW-Audi about was the price of the New Beetle. Another was that of the facelifted three-door Audi S3, a high-performance pocket rocket, due here at the end of the year.

Yet another was the price of the updated flagships of the Audi fleet, the all-aluminium A8 and S8. The prices of these cars, also due soon, have yet to be fixed.

Giltrap is watching how the New Zealand dollar is going against the Deutschmark. The other day one dollar bought one DM. A couple of years ago one dollar bought 1.18 DM. That was when VW-Audi was talking about landing the New Beetle in New Zealand for between $36,000 and $39,000.

Now the best Giltrap will be able to do on the New Beetle when it gets here around Christmas is upwards of $40,000.

That's if the exchange rate holds. If it improves, who knows? He doesn't want to price the retro Bug anywhere near the $47,990 VW is asking for the Golf GTi, upon which the chassis of the New Beetle is based.

He wants the price of the car to be such that it will guarantee it a shelf-life. He talks of the "low 40s" but concedes that $39,000 is where it should be. Such a price would require much factory support from VW, even with a stronger exchange rate.

But what the floating dollar won't affect is the price of the four-wheel-drive V8 addition to the A6 fleet. Not in the medium-term anyway. It has been fixed at $149,900 for the 4.2-litre quattro sedan, which Giltrap unveiled in Auckland on Thursday. The Avant (stationwagon) variant will be about $4000 more when it arrives in a few months. There will be no two-wheel-drive V8 A6 models.

The 40-valve 4.2-litre powerplant is the same unit as that used under the bonnet of the updated Audi A8 and S8.

Obvious telltale signs that there is more muscle in the car include flared wheel arches and side skirts, which give the vehicle a more aggressive appearance.

The use of 16-inch wheels, wider front and rear tracks and revised suspension settings, which lower the V8 by 10mm in the front and 5mm in the rear, adds to the squat stance.

Less obvious is the redesigned front grille, bonnet and bumpers. The air inlets have also been reworked.

The V8 model also uses aluminium running gear, which reduces the vehicle's unsprung weight by 10 per cent. The Avant variant also has self-levelling air suspension.

The 4.2-litre unit uses five valves a cylinder and a three-stage variable-length intake system made of magnesium and designed to best utilise the engine's pulling power.

The engine produces 220kW at 6200 rpm and a beefy 400Nm of pulling power between 3000 and 4000 rpm. Top speed is an electronically governed 250 km/h. The car's oomph is channelled to all four wheels through a clutchless tiptronic transmission, which can be operated in manual mode via a shift on the console or by buttons on the steering wheel.

The brakes, designed to match the car's higher performance, are ventilated discs on all four wheels.

Passive safety devices include dual front airbags, side airbags in the backs of the front seats, and airbags mounted in the roof lining which, when triggered, inflate to cover the entire side windows of the car.

These bags inflate to a depth of about 10cm, which Audi believes will help to prevent road deaths. Its research in Germany shows that only 23 per cent of all crashes involving injury are side impacts. But these account for 44 per cent of fatal injuries.

As with all top-end luxury cars, the V8 Audi A6 comes with the best of bells and whistles - electric this and that, free three-year motoring plan, 10-year anti-rust warranty ... Uncle Tom Cobbley and all.

Electronic back-up systems which prevent the careless driver from going backwards through a hedge include a stability programme (ESP), traction control (ASR), braking pressure device (EBD) and differential lock (EDL).

As Glynn Tulloch, Audi's sales manager, says: "Drive off the road in this car and you really will have done something spectacularly wrong."