Audi RS4 Avant: ‘Wholesome practicality married to joyfully unwholesome performance’ | Martin Love

Part beauty, part beast: Audi's latest super estate has it all

Audi RS4 Avant
Price 62,175
0-62mph 4.1 seconds
Top speed 174mph
MPG 32.1
CO2 199g/km

From the grind of the school run to the unfettered joy of a summer holiday, our cars bear witness to so much of both the dross and gloss of our lives. New research by the Car People has put some numbers on what a standard car in Britain experiences in the five-year period it will, on average, spend in our company. It will listen in to 187 heated arguments; sit quietly through 137 naps (not while you're actually driving, obvs); peep at 275 kisses and creak on its springs through one sexual encounter. There will also be 143 games of "eye spy". Then there's the less fun stuff: your car will undertake 515 parallel parks, picking up two scratches along the way. It will receive one speeding ticket, one parking ticket, get one flat, be part of one collision and, sadly, kill one small animal.