Today I had to part with the Audi RS6 that had adorned the driveway of the Mexican hacienda-style house that I live in. Beautiful as the house is, the driveway painfully narrow and there’s virtually no chance of turning around at the end. Therefore I was forced to reverse a $250,000 car (sometimes at night) using only the mirrors. With the foliage (i.e. trees) so close to the car the reversing sensors were having a techno party, and therefore were no use, and the reversing camera couldn’t tell you whether you were about to rip the mirror off with an unfortunate car vs. trunk episode.

My nerves survived and I found the RS6 quite interesting to live with; interesting, but not stellar. There was the time when I had to wait for a friend and I ended up watching Dr Phil in the in-dash TV. Then where was the morning that it was 4 degrees Celsius (6-stage seat warmers were welcome.) When I had to pick up a TV, the RS6′s capacious luggage space was useful – and it even had an integrated cargo net from the top of the rear seats up to the roof.

But, with all the weight (think automatically closing boot, heated wing mirrors, etc), a twin turbo 580 horsepower V10 just wasn’t enough. It’s like the technology removed you from the driving experience, and sound deadening removed you from the noise. Sure, it’s rapid on paper (and I have no doubt that the performance figures can be backed up, but it didn’t feel that way). So what do you buy if you want a rapid station wagon and have a quarter of a million  sitting around idle? I haven’t driven the E63 AMG (which is available as a station wagon) for about the same money, but if it’s every bit as good as the C63 AMG (in terms of sound and features), it’s going to give the RS6 a serious run for its money.