MTM lay tuning hands on Audi RS6 R Avant

As if the 155mph Audi RS6 Avant didn’t create enough of a breeze to dry your wet spaniel’s ears, the new 192mph Audi RS6 R Avant MTM performance tuning package will physically distort them, as the fastest Audi ever, just got that little bit more angry.

Another week, another German sports car tuner automotively molests another German sports car, only this time there’s a twist as you can see. It’s a family estate car that’s fallen prey to Motoren Technik Mayer’s wicked modification charms.

But before you shake you head in utter disbelief at the prospect of a humdrum station wagon receiving some TLC from MTM, then FYI you should think again.

And that’s because the Audi RS6 R Avant is no ordinary load-shifting set of motoring initials, and can hardly be accused of holding back its Audi R8 supercar-embarrassing performance intentions in its own rights thus far.

What marks MTM amongst its tuning house peers – and in particular what its love labours has manifested on the Audi RS6 R Avant – is its subtle approach to stunningly powerful, yet so-so aesthetically bereft enhancements. Something that doesn’t neccesarily go hand in oily glove with the modding world.

MTM’s new performance-focused tuning package has primarily concentrated on the RS6 R’s ECU. The results of these behind-the-scenes alterations show very little gratuitous skirt, whilst excessively anti-social lip is also kept in check.

Carbon fibre front spoiler lip and rear diffuser, combined with bespoke 21” MTM Bimoto alloys offer up the only visible concession to outer lairyness. In fact the Audi RS6 Avant is pretty much as far removed from anything bad boy as is physically possible.

Until you strap yourself in the driver’s seat, poke the start button and depress the loud pedal. Then it becomes as monumentally bad, phat and rude as Jade Goody in her Big Brother pomp.

The 580bhp 5.0-litre FSI twin-turbo V10 engine is as much trousers as mouth, expelling as it does some 56bhp more vocalism than a 217mph Ferrari Enzo. Obliterating 62mph in 3.9 seconds, the MTM-addled Audi RS6 R Avant won’t give an inch to 192mph.

The engine’s computer – in cahoots with a new exhaust system, air filter, modified breathing - are at the core of this motoring unrest. Which, if it weren’t for a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ between the squabbling Teutonic car manufacturers, would have rubbed salt into the wounds of the battered and bruised BMW 5-Series Touring and Mercedes E63 AMG estate, which remain restrained at 155mph. The MTM additions also include new suspension struts and six-piston momoblock brake callipers with slotted brake discs at the front, plus sports dampners.

Of course, some people – the sort that iron their socks – might find 192mph inappropriate; to which Audi have an answer. And that’s a molly-coddled 173mph-limiting ECU upgrade alternative.

MTM is no stranger to the sullying of Audi products, having fiddled with the important bits of a 231mph re-figured Audi TT as well as re-painting an Audi A6 in actual silver effect for an oil-rich Arab in the pantheons of its history.