The History of the Audi RS6 C5. In 2002, no other Audi had more power.
The objective was to add an eight cylinder to the basic design of the A8, series D2. The engine was already on the job in the S6, giving it 340 PS without charging. Nonetheless, it needed a lot of detail work: a powerful engine that from then on was double-turbocharged and had 4.2 liters of displacement did not fit in the body of the A6 at first. As a result, quattro GmbH extended the front end and gave the V8 1.6 in more installation space. The engine that drove the first RS 6 was not fine-tuned in Ingolstadt or Neckarsulm, but in England. Together with quattro GmbH, British engine manufacturer Cosworth, which was a subsidiary of AUDI AG until 2004, was also responsible for the impressive 450 PS output and 560 Nm of torque. That put it at the top of the segment. The V8 in the RS 6 sent a real message to the competition. As a comparison, at the time, the DTM Audi from the ABT team, which Laurent Aïello used to bring home the 2002 title, also had 450 PS.
A lot of power requires good control. The era of the manual transmission was over. For the first time, a torque-converter transmission gave an RS model shorter shifting times for gear shifts. Five driving modes enabled acceleration to 62 mph in 4.7 seconds. To make sure that the RS 6 Avant and Sedan impressed with their ideal spread between comfort and sportiness even in everyday driving, Audi now turned to the newly developed Dynamic Ride Control suspension. Stephan Reil, who has been in charge of developing all the RS 6 series and is now Head of Technical Development at the Neckarsulm site, summarizes by saying that “the DRC reduces roll and pitch movements in sporty driving, both on straightaways and in curves.” In concrete terms, it binds the car more closely to the road and constantly ensures agile handling, particularly in dynamic cornering. Dynamic Ride Control consists of steel springs that have two diagonally opposite hydraulic shock absorbers. These counteract the motion in the body of the vehicle without any time lag and they do it without electronics. When the car is turning into or traveling around a bend, the damper response is altered so that the vehicle’s movements are significantly reduced along the longitudinal axis (roll) and the transverse axis (pitch).
All first generation RS 6 vehicles (C5) were made both on the production line and by hand. Drivable, but far from complete. For instance, they lacked the filled suspension, RS-specific components, and individual decor elements in the interior. That is why they went from the plant in Neckarsulm to an adjacent hall. There quattro GmbH workers finalized each car individually over about 15 hours on the hydraulic lift.
To date, the C5 is the only RS 6 that is also a racing car from the start. The RS 6 Competition, which Champion Racing uses, outperformed its competitors with equal displacement in the 2003 SPEED GT World Challenge with Randy Pobst at the wheel. The V8 biturbo offered 475 PS, had a manual shift, and won on its first attempt.
At the end of the series, quattro GmbH added a shot of additional power and augmented the name with a “plus” as it went from 450 to 480 PS while the torque remained at 560 Nm. Now, a top speed of 174 mph was possible, rather than 155 mph. Previously optional equipment became standard.
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