Just as football didn’t start in 1992 with Sky and the Premiership, the fast estate didn’t begin with the Audi RS2 of 1994.
It can feel like it, though, and there’s no mistaking its game-changing, seismic impact. It was, after all, the fastest of its type when it was launched. Ever.
Engineered in cooperation with Porsche, with 968 Clubsport wheels and built at Zuffenhausen, it can dispatch the 0-30mph sprint quicker than a McLaren F1.
Roll forward 25 years and the RS4 Avant is the descendent, albeit a few generations later and with Porsche a distant branch on the family tree.
By modern sensibilities it is compact, like the RS2. Big enough, certainly; just right, probably. How many RS6 Avants or the unnecessary Q-class Audis move pianos, anyway?
Seats down the difference is about 200 litres, but the RS4 will rarely be found wanting for space and it’ll blow away just about anything else on the road.
A huge 444bhp powers it from the lights, a 133bhp increase in a quarter of a century, and from 0 to 60mph in just 4.1 secs (1.3 secs sooner) and on to 174mph with the limiter removed.
