It’s been three years since I drove the second generation Audi RS7. Memories can fade in such a space of time. That one, too, was nardo grey and a rare presence on UK roads. You’d be forgiven for thinking nothing has changed other than the number plate. One thing I can vividly remember not thinking, however, is that the Audi RS7 needed more power. That didn’t cross my mind. It was hugely potent. But, here we are. Audi is bidding a fond farewell to its internal combustion engine line up (for now, at least) and this is the Audi RS7 Performance. Effectively, it’s a final tail shake for the RS7; the last dance. The only danger is not really wanting the night to end.
Necessity is the mother of invention, so they say, and perhaps the internal combustion engine has been innovated on to the point of near perfection. It’s that aspect that makes their forced recession from public sale all the more lamentable.
You see, you could jump in the Audi RS7 Performance and do anything. Tootle to the shops, drive to Scotland, do a track day on the way; it’s a near complete proposition. We’ll dive into the numbers, but the ease with which it progresses is deeply impressive. It’s not when you’ve got the hammer down, going hell for leather, that you’re most in awe of it, rather when you’re at seventh tenths. It just picks up and goes so effortlessly and serenely. The RS sports exhaust system, when set to pronounced, emits a deeply pleasing note and the Audi RS7 Performance just zips off towards the horizon.
Whilst it’s perhaps most impressive when you’re persuading it rather than bullying it, the Audi RS7 Performance has enough power to teleport you towards the future. 621bhp and 830Nm of torque are good for 0-62mph in 3.4secs. That’s 30bhp, 30Nm of torque more than the regular RS7; it’s 0.2secs faster to 62. It’s the same 4.0-litre twin-turbo charged V8 engine.
The devil is in the detail. The RS Sports suspension plus is undoubtedly where the bulk of the driving experience differs from the older version. Dive into the individual RS drive modes and the changes in setup are stark. Comfort, balanced and dynamic are the three suspension settings. In comfort, it can be rather bouncy over pockmarked or undulating surfaces, whilst being way too firm in such settings in dynamic. Balanced seemed to deliver the best overall setting, although comfort out on the motorway delivers the sort of magic carpet ride you’d expect from a luxury saloon.
But you’re not buying an Audi RS7 Performance to chauffeur people around in. You’re buying it because it’s a genuine competitor to most sports cars. On that front, there’s an unholy amount of grip. It being summer in the UK, I faced torrential rain for the majority of my weekend with the RS7 Performance. I’m unsure I’d have driven it much quicker in the dry. The way it corners is scarcely believable for a car that’s more than five-metres long and more than two-tons in weight. You’re expecting traction to break, but it just doesn’t. You’d need more than a couple of days, and more space than a UK road, to discover its limits.
On the motorway, in amongst ‘normal’ cars, however, you fully appreciate the effortlessness with which the Audi RS7 Performance makes such straightforward progress. B-road or motorway, it’s at home.
309.6 miles of driving, 9:43hrs at the wheel and a fuel economy of 17.9mpg. That’s that out of the way. The Audi RS7 Performance isn’t designed to be the most frugal of operators. Anyway, with a 75-litre fuel tank and light right foot you could manage 400-miles between petrol station visits. But you won’t drive it with a light right foot because you own an Audi RS7 Performance.
One undoubted strong point is the overall practicality. A 535-litre boot is more than enough for a few cricket bags, suitcase, golf clubs; whatever you need to ferry around. If you’ve got a dog that enjoys drag racing, you’ll need to get the Audi RS6 Performance, with its similar performance and estate layout.
Rear legroom in the RS7 Performance is ample, so a good choice for your taller friends and family members. As is the overall comfort. The front seats are heated and ventilated as standard and the greatest compliment I can pay them is that I didn’t really notice them. Set them to your preferred position and that’s about it. Whether driving sedately or satanically, they are the perfect companions.
Sifting through the drive modes is made easy with the RS button on the steering wheel. With RS1 and RS2 configurations, you can get your settings just so. I found myself setting the suspension to balanced, steering to balanced, exhaust to pronounced and powertrain to dynamic. This offered the perfect balance of being aggressive enough to kid myself that I’m younger than I am whilst catering for how old I actually am.
For the pre-sets, you need to avert your gaze from the road to locate the drive setting button beneath the HVAC touchscreen. Having everything set on RS button makes this much easier.
That said, I’m huge fan of Audi’s two-screen setup. Haptic feedback means you know when a button has been pressed and the menus are clearly laid out. I used Android Auto most of the time anyway. The configurability of the virtual cockpit is brilliant, too. Audis, as always, are supremely easy cars to live with.
The last Audi I had before the RS7 Performance was the Audi S8. Now, I declared that as my favourite Audi; the perfect combination of understated elegance and ballistic performance. The RS7 Performance ran it much closer than I expected.
I was anticipating a minor upgrade on the previous RS7, but the Performance is a genuine step on. Yes, it’s more powerful, but it also feels more purposeful when you want yet subtle when you need.
Subtle is a relative term for a car with flared wheel arches and 22” wheels filling them, but the Audi RS7 Performance can pass by unnoticed when you want it to. Dial it up and it’ll turn heads as the V8 makes its presence felt. Multi-faceted, I guess, is the term I’m searching for.
It fits the Audi RS7 Performance well. Throw it at any scenario and it simply excels. A long motorway slog, a jaunt along your favourite B-road or ferrying passengers around, there’s nothing that catches it out. Even in tight spaces, with all-wheel steering, self-parking capability and surround view cameras on hand it’s unintimidating.
So much so that you can, at times, forget that you’ve got enough power to keep the planet rotating with your right foot. Then that V8 barks into life and other cars get smaller in your rear view mirror very quickly. More than just a facelift, the Audi RS7 Performance is a fine way for the RS7 to bow out.
