No, if you wanted a formidably fast all-weather family wagon it had to be an Audi RS6 or RS4, with which it more or less cornered the market. And one of the best was the C7 generation of RS6.

With the V8’s clever cylinder on demand technology replenishing the RS6 Avant’s 75-litre fuel tank isn’t the repetitive event you might imagine. On a run it will return an mpg figure in the ...