 Bucket List Drive: The Alps. Click image to enlarge |
It is one of the most beautiful, serene, ethereal places on earth that I’ve ever visited. I know that because we actually stopped for photos and took a look around.
Picture heaven. With a road in it. Well, of course, heaven has a road in it! And that road is exactly like this one.
That smooth road wound its way up to our observation point, and continued to snake its way through the tunnel that marked its highest point. When we drove it, it was pretty much empty except for a couple of stray cyclists, inviting us to explore the limits of these cars. The rain and fog, not so much.
For the ascent, I was in the Quattro Coupe. Yes, that Quattro Coupe, the ‘Ur’ Quattro, one of the very first all-wheel-drive sports cars and graced with a 220 hp turbocharged 2.2L five-cylinder. I won’t delve too deeply as that car is a story unto itself. I will tell you this, though: I was terrified. I wasn’t even sure if it had ABS brakes (it does), and I did not want to be the one stuffing it into a wall, or worse yet, not being around to hear about the guy who drove off a cliff in Austria on that Audi press trip. Thankfully, no one did, especially not me. That Audi was able to build this car 25 years ago is a lot to wrap my head around. But I will, and I will tell you all about it when I do.
But back to the Grossglockner, where we switched cars after a photo shoot, then another photo shoot, then the highlight of day one, the final descent of Grossglockner in the RS7, its twin-turbo 4.0L V8 mostly providing the soundtrack of gurgles and crackling downshifts while the wave-design carbon ceramic brakes and adaptive air suspension did most of the work, keeping speed and body motions in check. There are definitely better cars for tackling switchback descents, as the RS7’s 1,995 kg is nothing to sneeze at, even if Audi has done their best to minimize weight by using aluminum for the front fenders, bonnet, doors and trunklid.
So it’s heavy, but understandable considering its size, and damn near miraculous in its body control, cornering flat with Quattro adjusting power between the axles, and the rear sport differential apportioning torque between the rears.
   Bucket List Drive: The Alps. Click image to enlarge |
However, the power delivery and distribution weren’t truly tested until the next pass, Pass Thurn, which had an ascent in which to exercise some of the bi-turbo V8’s 560 hp and 516 lb-ft of torque. Yeah, it’s got lots of torque. On the final stretch up to Kitzbuhel, we had a few hairpins followed by fairly lengthy straights – just long enough to get up to speeds that required taking one’s foot off the throttle, not to slow down for the next turn, but because there are limits to the speeds one should drive on public roads, even in the Alps. It’s not like it’s the Autobahn. The RS7 only seems to get more composed the faster you go.
And in the tight cornering work, the S tronic transmission will find the lowest gear possible in Sport, or you can control the issue with the paddle shifter, and it bellows as you put your foot to the floor, roaring up to speed on a wave of power that feels glorious and omnipotent. It feels and acts bigger than the larger V10 in the R8, which screams as it seems to want to peel the skin off you. By the time we pulled up to the Hotel in Kitzbuhel, it was dark, and the intense adaptive lighting and nav system directions cast onto the windshield by the head-up display led us safely to our overnight stop.
