   Bucket List Drive: The Alps. Click image to enlarge |
Review and photos by Jonathan Yarkony
Klagenfurt, Austria – I tried to resist. I almost wasn’t going to drive it. I mean, it’s a car we’ll never see here in North America, so I figured, well, we really don’t need to cover it. But then I had my turn behind the wheel of the Audi RS6 Avant and I was changed forever. That was when it all came together. This magical trip, these spectacular cars, these epic roads, this lucky life.
Yes, there is a certain measure of objectivity we must attempt when evaluating and reporting on cars for consumer, but along the way there are some experiences that we cannot fail to appreciate as driving enthusiasts. On pretty much every driving enthusiast’s bucket list is an epic mountain pass, twisting back and forth up and down a steep cut between taller peaks, and quite often, it is one of the multitude of passes criss-crossing the Alps between France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy. Perhaps most famous is the Stelvio Pass of Top Gear fame, but there are literally dozens of them in the Alps, the small twisty roads reflecting the spread of civilization and the need to connect with other communities.
For its 2013 Audi Alpen Tour through the Alps, what Audi like to call the Land of Quattro, Audi event planners designed a route emanating from Klagenfurt, Austria through various Alpen passes in Austria, Italy, Switzerland, into France, down to Monaco, and then returning along the same route. Each direction was broken into three legs, with a different group of international media for each leg for a total of six waves. A small group of Canadian Media was invited to complete the last leg, joining up with the travelling circus at Innsbruck, Austria and bringing the convoy home to Klagenfurt with an overnight stop in Kitzbuhel.
The first day started with the RS5 Cabriolet, immediately climbing a road up steep switchback turns just minutes out of our hotel, this one not even a highlighted pass on our route. I eventually took the wheel in a small town in mid-morning, dropped the top, cruised along some rural highways and drove Brenner Pass before pulling in for our lunch stop in the Italian side of the border. Brenner Pass is not a steep climb of tight switchbacks up a mountainside, but rather a flat, sinuous stretch around Brenner Lake and then a ribbon of elevated roads and tunnels carving between the mountains looming around us. It was a faster and smoother pass than we expected and was over just as I managed to find a stretch free of traffic.
After lunch my driving partner and I set out with another pair of journos, a convoy of one matte grey 2014 Audi RS7 and a mint 1988 Audi Quattro Coupe. We quickly climbed the Valparola Pass and descended the Falzarego Pass (Passo di Falzarego to locals, tight switchback roads through the rocky Dolomites leading into Cortina d’Ampezzo, a ski-resort town and host of the 1956 Winter Olympics. It went by in a blur. I think I saw the ski jumping hill. Exciting, I know.
  Bucket List Drive: The Alps. Click image to enlarge |
But we weren’t here for the scenery, we were here for the roads and the cars. I took the wheel some time after we crossed back into Austria, where we traversed the Grossglockner High Alpine Road. Epic.
You have to pay to drive this road and understandably so. Yes, I’m sure it goes to maintenance of the tunnels and roads, which are in excellent shape, many of them elevated, with some sections even retaining the paving stones dating back to the modern road built almost 100 years ago. Archaeological findings show that the pass was in use as early as 5,000 years ago. According to the route book, the road has 36 hairpins, climbs 1,500 m, its highest point at 2,506 m and runs through the Hohe Tauern National Park, yet it is wide and smoothly paved in most areas. It also offers a magnificent view of Austria’s highest peak, Grossglockner, after which the road is named.
 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.
    Bucket List Drive: The Alps. Click image to enlarge |
Day 2
After waking up to cowbells and a blanket of fog so think I could barely see past the balcony from the room, I was ready for more driving. On the menu was the RSQ3, the real reason for this event. For us North Americans, we were testing a couple vehicles we could later test on home soil, but also sampling forbidden fruit in this RSQ3, Audi’s compact crossover available overseas, packed with a 310 hp turbocharged five-cylinder.
We departed shortly before our convoy partner from the previous day, drove scintillating roads that were not even marked as notable passes, but were still infinitely better than anything within two hours of the GTA. Sure, there are some nice sections of road around here, but this seemed like a non-stop assault of roads engineered not for connecting various population centres, but purely to entertain.
The RSQ3, its diminutive five-cylinder offering character far beyond its 2.5L displacement, surprised us with its abilities. On these mountain passes, its smaller size, lighter weight but still competent chassis meant it could keep up with any of the big boys at the hands of a willing driver. After all, there is only so much room to exercise 560 hp between hairpins, and the RSQ3’s 310 lb-ft of torque, available from 1,500 to 5,200 rpm were always kicking, while Audi’s suspension magic meant the RSQ3 exhibits minimal body roll without being an uncomfortable ride, and the front-biased AWD is quick to react and push the car quickly out of a turn. I was much impressed with its performance, but the compact SUV roots showed – despite Audi’s excellent sport steering wheel and quilted leather seats, the centre stack seemed basic, with economical parts and some strange design gaps. You won’t notice these much when tearing up an Alpine pass with the 2.5 turbo-five screaming, but it falls a little short of the premium, coherent interiors we’re used to from Audi that are such a treat in the daily grind.
While scouting out a nice little perch, our convoy buddies pulled into the same lot, and we fired off some dramatic shots of the RS6 Avant with archetypal Austrian pasture and mountains (yup, these are a few of my favourite things: when the twin-turbo V8 barks, when the S tronic stings, etc., etc.). They offered a swap, and I figured, “What the heck…”
Part of me did not want to drive the RS6 Avant, which I find to be one of the most beautiful car on the market and possibly the most perfect wagon ever created, because I didn’t want to get caught up in the obsession with ‘forbidden fruit’. This car is not coming to North America, so why trouble with the minute differences between it and the RS7 with which it shares engine and platform?
Well, now I’m troubled. It drives even better than it looks. It seems to add just that small intangible to the omnipotence of the RS7, and I could swear that it has banished the minute lag to the RS7’s steering on initial turn-in. The RS7 has a moment of hesitation, perhaps millimetres or single degrees, but the RS6 turns in now, and all the power, refinement and capability are there, but with a cargo hold to shame most SUVs. I’m ruined forever now.
It’s the best one-car solution out there (for me): family car, commuter, executive limo, weekend cruiser, road trip warrior or track-day star, the RS6 Avant could do it all. Okay, off-roading requiring more than a few inches ground clearance is obviously out of the question, and even cresting high snowplow banks might stymie it, but for anything else, this thing is all-conquering.
   Bucket List Drive: The Alps. Click image to enlarge |
Though I drove the RS6 for the least amount of time of all the cars we drove, it made the deepest impression. Just a quick run up and down and back again, and it won me over, heart and soul. It wasn’t even one of those famous passes, just another hill with wider sweeping corners, slightly longer straights and smoothly paved almost all the way, and just dry enough to push it comfortably, feel the massive grip and traction, then the accelerative force of the twin-turbo V8 poured through Quattro AWD as the exhaust crackles and spits fire at every downshift. A truly magnificent and evil cackle, and the interior volume of the Avant seems to echo it that little bit better, though that may have just been my bias filtering into my perceptions. Everything just seems better in the Avant – a beautiful car will do that.
From there it was on to lunch, the Solk Pass back in the RS5 Cabriolet, a fairly steep climb and descent but with curves as well as switchbacks, which we drove twice because it was so amazing. But again, rain and fog kept us from getting aggressive – I didn’t want to drive a brand new RS5 convertible off the side of a road any more than I would the vintage Quattro. After driving the various turbocharged cars, the naturally aspirated V8 of the RS5 won me over again, it’s linear rising power and smoother note the most beautiful sounding of the engines we sampled. I love that engine.
The last two notable passes were Turacher Hohe (at times as steep as 23 percent gradient) and Nockalm Road, but by that point, the never-ending combinations of switchbacks and passes were beginning to blend into one long, surreal dream. In two days, we repeatedly drove roads better than any I’ll see in an entire year, and in cars perfectly designed to handle the tasks of climbing, braking, turning and repeating. At one point, we got lost on a detour, managed to fill up on gas when we were down to reserve despite a language barrier and the attendant looking at us like we landed in an alien spacecraft rather than a convertible Audi.
While there is no question that the event served its purpose. Audi demonstrated the capability, confidence, heritage and appeal of their Quattro GmbH RS cars and introduced the new RSQ3, showing that it can keep up with Audi’s bigger, more powerful sports cars. But the event was so much more than that. Take away the cars, the horsepower, the hotels, the meals and the roads remain. These are driver’s roads in concentration and quantity that no other place on the planet can match. If you love to drive, if you live for the corner, the balance, or even just want to take in the spectacular views, arrange for a reasonable handling car and take to the Alps. It’s the drive of a lifetime and something you’ll cherish forever.
