Minneapolis Street Sighting: Audi S6 Avant

I have a thing for Audis; always have, really, but most of the aren't special enough to qualify as blog material, to be honest. Yes, some of the upper-echelon Audis are gorgeous cars, but even the R8 isn't special enough to be written up here. I do so when they were new, and because--well, I liked them. Now that they've been out, my enthusiasm for the R8 has wanted a tad bit. Sure, I get excited when I see them, but I don't get pissed if I miss out on pictures.

 Older Audis are more along the lines of what I like; unfortunately, anything pre B4 A4 is pretty much toast here, thanks to our awesomely salted roads in the wintertime; add that to the fact that most pre-2000 VW products have horrible rustproofing, and you're left with vehicles that are both supposedly unreliable, as well as vehicles which have pretty much no rustproofing.

In Audi terms, the A4 is the smallest sedan and avant, and the A6 is one car-size up from that. The basic range is the A6, and the S6, and the daddy of them all, the RS6. Available in Avant form overseas, and only here as the sedan, the S6 did battle with 400E, the 500E, and the BMW E34 M5.  But, unlike its rivals, the S6 is easy to import variations of; for what reason, I don't know, but this isn't the first Eurospec S6 Avant I've seen here.

The paint on this example is fantastic under the winter grime and dust that plagues this example.  know I should get mad at such a rare beast being dirty, but it proves the owner loves his car; and with quattro, why not drive it all through the winter? It's all-wheel-drive, and has meaty tires, so it might be best to make use of the combination, right? The only flaw I saw on this example was the little rust spot on the leading edge of the rear fender-panel; although it looks minor here, that particular spot is often a trouble spot for Audis as the tailgate was made from a different grade-steel that the fenders.  If not treated, that spot could eventually infect the whole car.

Cars like this make me smile for two reasons; they're rare--but they're also being used as cars--and that means they are owned by car people, not money-hungry collectors out to make an quick buck from an investment. I love this car, as with the vast majority of other Audi Avants, and I'm glad this one is being used. Now, to clean up the little rust spot.