Audi RS4 Avant (2012) spy pictures

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This is a car we’re very excited about, the new Audi RS4 Avant. Spotted testing on the roads around the Nurburgring, it slots the RS5’s enticing V8 engine and four-wheel package into the much more practical A4 Avant body.

So the fresh Audi RS4 Avant is an Audi RS5 estate?

Pretty much. This mule is far from the accomplished blueprint (the bodywork is accepted S4 Avant bar the tweaked advanced bonanza to accommodate added cooling for the engine) but it does action 20-inch ‘Rotor’ alloys from the RS5, additional RS-branded callipers and bigger brakes – the S4 doesn’t accept accomplished discs.

Audi has apparent a Q5 abstraction car with the S4's supercharged 3.0-litre V6 tweaked to 402bhp, but ability is instead apprehend to appear from the aforementioned absolute bang 4.2-litre V8 that admiral the RS5. That agency 444bhp and 317lb ft, beatific to all four auto via a seven-speed dual-clutch S-tronic gearbox.

It’s not that simple though, as there should additionally be the fresh self-locking crown-gear centre animosity that debuted on the RS5, additional Audi’s Action cogwheel that splits ability amid the rear wheels. Other tech accessible will accommodate Dynamic Ride Control (with all four shock absorbers affiliated for beneath anatomy roll) and Dynamic Steering, both with tweakable settings.

What abroad do we apperceive about the fresh Audi RS4 Avant?

Beyond that there’ll be RS-specific seats and trimmings inside, the brand accompanying egg-shaped exhausts and aluminium-look aperture mirrors, abounding abeyance and anatomy updates, and beefier bodywork. And we apprehend that aloof as the fresh BMW M5 is accepted to alone be accessible as a saloon, the RS4 will alone appear in acreage guise – there's no abode for the four-door amid the RS5 auto and this Avant.

With the aboriginal mule alone actualization now, it'll be a while yet afore the RS4 appears in assembly guise; account on a admission at the 2012 Geneva motor show, with UK sales starting appear the end of abutting year.