Audi RS6 car review: ‘You could buy this car or you could buy a house in Lancashire’

It is impossible to critique unless you put the price to one side, but that is unfair on all the other cars

It is a car that people crossed the road to call nice. One guy undertook me in a chimp display and ran into the car in front of him; I tore past the wreckage (marred bumper), leaving him speechless with rage. The Audi RS6 was the best of cars, it was the worst of cars.

It was only not 100,000 because, in some silted recess of car-industry restraint, that is still understood to be an obscene amount to spend on a car. Instead, with all its trimmings, it was 99,420. What it was trying to achieve - a pleasurable, solid but chic family car that at the flick of a switch turns into a sports car that could quite plausibly take off or fire rockets - is an insanely expensive proposition. Incomprehensible extras (the carbon styling package, the "5-V-spoke" star design black gloss alloy wheels) added another Mazda to the price. You could buy this car, or you could buy a house in Lancashire, or you could buy a boat. It is impossible to critique unless you put the price to one side, but that is unfair on all the other cars. Because it is amazing; and maybe all the other cars would be, too, if they took leave of their senses.