New limited-run RS6 GT provides the sensory excitement to justify its obnoxious look
In short succession, we’ve had a one-of-660 Audi RS6 Avant GT delivered to Autocar HQ, Toyota has announced a run of laudably hardcore GR Supras and Alpina has been in touch to ask if we would like a go in the dreamy, last-of-the-line B3 GT.
We appear to be living in the midst of a special-edition bonanza (no prizes for guessing why), and it’s an excellent thing.
One day, most of these cars will have shed their ridiculous price tags and be spectacular used buys. The ‘special edition’ is a familiar ploy for shifting old metal, but do it well and icons can be born.
It will be particularly interesting to chart the RS6 GT’s value trajectory. We’re talking about a £180k estate here – one with manually adjustable dampers, which is of course what every family wagon needs. Madness.
It also appears to have the most kerbable alloy wheels (white, too!) since Jay-Z’s Maybach Exelero. And I can’t have been the only one who thought that Audi had made a bit of a Horlicks of the design with the eyeball-searing IMSA GTO-inspired graphics.
Yet when you see the thing in the metal, it works, having the aura not of a messily jazzed-up mega-estate but of a practical supercar. Special? Yeah, and then some. Genuinely good to drive, too.
As to where the bottom of the depreciation curve will lurk, the regular RS6 has stubbornly held its value and you will struggle to find even four-year-old examples for less than £70k.
The RS6 GT’s three-year, 36k-mile value is something that the experts at Cap HPI don’t even attempt to predict, and who can blame them? As with the BMW M5 CS, it will take a while for prices to come to earth, but they will.
The desirability of a special edition is generally proportional to the level of effort that went into creating it. The reason nobody can now afford a half-decent Tommi Mäkinen Lancer Evolution VI is because Mitsubishi didn’t just do a snazzy sticker job and send the car on its way.
It fitted the titanium-bladed turbocharger from the proper homologation Evos for the World Rally Championship, a quicker steering rack, improved aero and ‘Tarmac’ suspension settings that put you 10mm closer to the road.
The decals were a £700 option in 2001 – just the cherry on top. Contrast that with Citroën’s C4 by Loeb, a breathtakingly banal special edition, of which aesthetic tweaks were the main event. There’s one for sale in Tonbridge for £1295.
Name-checking legends of motorsport doesn’t have to be done either expensively or cynically, though. I’ve always had a soft spot for the Fiat Stilo Schumacher GP: five-pot tickled to 170bhp, some smart wheels, Prodrive-tuned suspension. Nice.
Most of the special-edition landscape is, of course, opportunistic drivel. Aston Martin is a repeat offender with its Bond-referencing and Pagani often feels a bespoke paint job is reason enough to deploy a press release.
I don’t have a problem with that old Audi favourite, the Black Edition, often seen on A3s and so on, because such cars are usually good value, throwing lots of kit into the mix.
And I don’t mind the silly stuff either (the Volkswagen Polo Harlequin, haute-couture Fiat 500s), but they’re just that: very silly.
But still, the expertly executed, well-targeted, performance-flavoured special remains a rarity.
So what’s out there now that already happens to be temptingly priced? In recent years, BMW has revived the CS line and the F82-shape M4 CS is now a fine proposition.
One-owner cars with 30k miles can be had for around £40k – a fair chunk, sure, and the lightweight door cards and so on do have an impact in terms of usability, but what a machine.
So light and fizzing, and meaningfully different to the regular car. Today you will notice a slight lack of structural stiffness compared with the G82 M4, but for new Golf GTI money you’re getting 454bhp of meticulously fettled, right-sized M car that cost its first owner nearly six figures. The M3 version is just as good.
Moving a notch along the hardcore spectrum, we come to the Lotus Exige 390 Final Edition. In truth, I thought these might have slipped more than they have; you still need around £60k.
It appears there’s nothing quite like the company doing a philosophical volte-face when it comes to shoring up the values of the old guard. Still, it would be money well spent – a Goldilocks Exige.
But the gem in the used special-edition field? Audi’s R8 RWS, now at £65k. For that you get a V10 and a beguiling supercar-GT character for £25k less than a new M4.
The RS6 GT may be a final spasm of pre-EV Audi humour, but the rear-drive RWS was an exquisite moment of mayhem.