Five station wagons with supercar performance

Friday, 8 June 2018

Developed by Porsche for Audi, the RS2 (left) is the grandaddy of improbably fast wagons.

Let's imagine for a second that you need a wagon for its space, practicality, and just because station wagons are cool.

But you also want supercar performance. Now you are getting very specific.

While there are plenty of SUVs with supercar performance on offer, you don't want any of those because they are silly and pointless. You want a station wagon.

Well, you are in luck, because today we take a look at five superfast wagons you can buy new in New Zealand.

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The Mercedes-AMG C 63 S is a very fast wagon. It also handily doubles as a smoke machine.

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The Audi RS4 is a direct descendant of the car that pretty much started it all, the RS2.

Mercedes-Benz C 63 S

While the E 63 S estate should make this list, Mercedes doesn't offer it here.

But that's not to say that the C 63 is a bad alternative, after all, anything powered by AMG's volcanic 375kW/700Nm 4.0-litre biturbo V8 is gonna be pretty damn good…

And the C 63 S estate most certainly is good. Very good, even. It rockets to 100kmh from a standing start in just 4.1 seconds and sounds utterly fantastic doing it.

Audi are arguably the masters of the very fast wagon, and the RS6 is proof of that.

And just look at it! The C-class estate is a fantastically handsome car to begin with, but add those menacing AMG looks and you get something very special indeed.

Audi RS4 Avant

While what powers the RS4 has changed somewhat over the years, its core reason for being hasn't. And that core reason is to go rather fast, and it does that rather well too.

The RS4 started its life powered by a 2.7-litre biturbo V6, before moving to a naturally-aspirated 4.2-litre V8 for its second generation in 2006.

Yep, Ferrari makes a station wagon. Okay, they call it a shooting brake, but we know what it is...

The fourth-gen car of 2012 stuck with a V8 before the new fifth gen car switched back to a turbo V6 this year.

But what a V6 it is - with 331kW and 600Nm pounding through an 8-speed automatic transmission to all four wheels, the RS4 Avant rips to 100kmh in 4.1 seconds, or 0.7 seconds faster than the last V8 car…

Audi RS6 Avant

Yes, Audi does like its fast wagons. And it does them well.

The fastest wagon you can buy new in New Zealand is a hybrid - the Porsche Panamera Tursimo.

While the RS4 is good, the RS6 is simply superb.

With a twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8 pumping out 445kW of power and 750Nm of torque (again, through all four wheels), the RS6 belts to the legal limit in a frankly silly 3.7 seconds and also feels brilliantly agile and alive through the corners, which is something its V10-powered predecessor never managed to do.

It also makes a noise like the end of the world, which is rather nice as well.

Ferrari GTC4Lusso

Okay, so technically Ferrari calls this a shooting brake, but that's close enough to being a wagon for us.

And it is one hell of a wagon.

Powered by Ferrari's majestic 507kW/697Nm 6.2-litre naturally-aspirated V12, the GTC4Lusso sounds like a proper Ferrari should and, with a 0-100 time of 3.4 seconds, goes like one too.

And like all 'non-traditional' Ferraris it looks best in non-traditional Ferrari colours too - we'll have ours in Blu Pozzi (a very, very, very dark blue) thank you very much Santa.

Porsche Panamera

Yep, that's right - a hybrid tops this list. But it's not just any hybrid…

While the Panamera wagon with the ridiculously long name - it's called the Turbo S E-Hybrid Sport Turismo - boasts the same 3.4 second 0 to 100 time as the mighty Ferrari, its intensely silly torque shades the Italian's V12 rather comprehensively.

While the 4.0-litre turbo V8 produces 404kW and 770Nm on its own, adding a 100kW/400Nm electric motor to the mix pumps this up to a combined output of a frankly ridiculous 500kW and 850Nm, with all of that torque coming in under 2000rpm.

Oh, and Porsche also claims a combined fuel consumption figure of just 3.0l/100km. Which, let's face it, you are never going to see.