I took my cousin's A6 for a spin and boy, was my cousin right in describing it as a wolf in sheep's clothing!
First impressions, the interior is very nicely finished but due to the clutter and mess from everyday use its just hard to feel the cabin in its original form. The speedo and tachometer display the current gear selection as well as a myriad of other information which I didn't really notice.
Rather, I was more like distracted by the performance of the 2.0L turbocharged FSI engine. As well as the ultra responsive gearbox. First round was me taking the helm and I left the stick at 'D', leaving the shifts to be controlled by the ECU. Everything was fine and dandy and there were no problems overtaking even after 100km/h.
Soon, my cousin switched with me because he was more familiar with the car's limits, and he immediately left the gearbox selector at 'S' which is the Sports mode. Oh man, I've never experienced such a rush, the car showed no signs of slowing even after reaching highly illegal limits. I finally understood all the hoohaa about forced induction being the way to go, even marques like BMW are beginning to take the FI route.
There was this incident where a silly Corolla driver tried to cut into our lane, without signalling. That's ok but there really was very little clearance between us and the front car so my cousin blasted his horn and gestured the typical 'wtf you doing' with his right hand. (No it wasn't the finger)
After which, I don't know if the driver braked because he wasn't too happy about the horn was he was following too closely to the front car. Anyway it ended with my cousin hitting 'S' mode, overtaking every single vehicle from the left and literally blitzing away. At one point we hit 180kph and no, it really didn't feel scary or fast at all.
The only downsides of this car I feel would be perhaps its tyre chewing abilities. Without quattro to put the power down to the road, the front wheel drive setup gives the front wheels too much power to handle. Evident from the burning rubber smell after the drive. Like what the Pirelli ad says, 'Power is nothing without control'. Shed with Continental Sport Contact2 tyres, it should be pretty grippy but tyre age is catching up pretty quickly.
The TFSI engine is superb, having a real flat torque curve, loads of power but the only downside would be the noise intrusion into the cabin. Wasn't really expecting an Audi to sound so sporty from inside the cabin but you give some you take some. I can still relish nudging the right pedal ever so gently and being pushed back into my seat, with the grass, trees and everything zooming by so quickly. Lucky for me, there is a speed limit warning alarm that buzzed aloud at 130kph, reminding me to slow down. Oh well, almost thought I was on the Autobahn.
Perfect way to start a boring Wednesday =D