German Car Zone - View Single Post - Audi A6 Avant 3.0 TDI is the best car in the world!

Yannis · **Audi A6 Avant 3.0 TDI is the best car in the world! -** 10-16-2005, 08:50 AM

I hereby intend to prove, by an arbitrary but, I believe, definitive process of elimination, that the Audi A6 Avant 3.0 diesel is the best car in the world.

Let's start with the obvious candidates: Ferraris, Astons and the like. To be the best a car must have an appeal beyond hairy, middle-aged men in Tod's loafers and garish silk shirts. No, the world's best car needs to be both an ornament and of use, and a Lamborghini Murcielago is useful only as a means of tempting heavily tanned, tottering-heeled scrubbers from the bar at the Hotel Byblos, St Tropez.

We can cast aside Rolls-Royces, Maybachs and Bentleys on similar grounds. Driving a car that makes people spit on you the moment they get a clear shot has limited appeal. Plus they use petrol at a rate that even Dick Cheney would find irresponsible.

"Range Rover!" I hear you cry. Don't be daft. A Harrier Jump Jet will be cheaper to run, and more reliable. And anyway, how desirable can it be to drive a car that, if you ask it to change lanes at anything over 70mph, feels like it might fall over?

Let's set our sights a little lower. What about a Lexus? Well, they might well be as reliable as an atomic clock, with satin-smooth engines and lovely seats, but they are still a Japanese facsimile of a European luxury saloon, circa 1994. In fact, while we're at it, we can dismiss anything Japanese, hell, anything Asian, as neither stylish (goodbye, sadly, Subaru), nor prestigious enough. The only potentially desirable Japanese car is the Honda NSX, and when was the last time you saw one of those? If it was the best, surely someone somewhere would have bought one by now.

So that's one continent dismissed out of hand and we can of course throw the Americans out of the balloon too. My four-year-old can build a better car out of old cereal boxes and potato peelings. Which brings us back to Europe. I'm very excited about the forthcoming Citroën C6 but, as with my fondness for the later Style Council albums, I realise I may be ploughing a lonely furrow with that one. Alfa Romeos have only ever been desirable in the eyes of those who have never owned one, and as for our own domestic product, these days it's limited to overblown go-karts like the Noble.

"What about Jaguar?" Is that you again? I'm not even going to dignify that with an answer (perhaps if they invested some money in R&D...), which leaves the Germans.

Porsche's flagship, the 911, is a salutary lesson in how to spend half a century trying to fix an embarrassing, fundamental design flaw; we all know Mercedes are rubbish these days; BMWs look like they've been designed with an axe, and VW's current range is wilfully dull. Which leaves Audi. But, the A2 is just silly, the A3 is just a Golf with delusions of grandeur, and the A4 is just a bit too Wernham Hogg. Meanwhile, the A8 doesn't come in an estate version and, I ask you, given a choice, why on earth would anyone not want an estate? Which leaves the A6 Avant, with its very clever boot storage system (pop down your local dealer for a look, there's not space to do it justice here); self-levelling air suspension; four-wheel drive; frugal, smooth 3.0 litre V6 engine; looks to die for; quality to make a Mercedes line manager weep; epic style, grace, and more pace than you'll ever need; plus muck-resistant reversible floor mats, all for a shade over £30k.

Article: http://motoring.independent.co.uk/ro...icle319772.ece