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Jon Olsson’s 1000-hp Audi RS 6 Avant is a DTM-inspired dream wagon

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With 552 horsepower under the hood, the RS 6 Avant is the most extreme station wagon that Audi has ever built. Swedish professional skier Jon Olsson believed that there was room for improvement, so he teamed up with Koenigsegg’s former chief engineer and designed an even more hardcore version of the family hauler.

Olsson’s first order of business was to squeeze more power out of the RS 6’s twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter TFSI V8 engine by making numerous modifications including adding a pair of beefy 18-karat gold anodized turbochargers and a straight-pipe race exhaust system designed by Milltek Sport. All told, the eight cylinder’s output has been bumped to a whopping 950 horsepower if it burns regular pump gas and over 1,000 horsepower if it is fed with high-octane race fuel.

Performance specifications have not been published yet. However, to put the aforementioned figures into perspective, consider that a bone stock RS 6 Avant sprints from zero to 62 mph in about 3.9 seconds, which is faster than a Porsche 911 Carrera GTS.

The wagon sits a lot lower than its regular-production counterpart thanks to a suspension system that has been upgraded with components sourced from Intrax, and the prodigious amount of power generated by the tuned TFSI is kept in check by upgraded Movit brakes on all four corners. Interestingly, Olsson’s RS 6 remains fully street legal – at least in Sweden – in spite of the extensive mechanical modifications and the skier plans on using it as a daily driver.

Visually, the RS 6 screams power thanks to a custom-built body kit inspired by the cars that compete in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM) championship. The front end gains a deep front bumper with a sizable splitter made out of carbon fiber and a blacked-out radiator grille, while the rear end has been upgraded with a roof-mounted spoiler and a huge air diffuser that integrates a pair of oval exhaust outlets. Multi-spoke alloy wheels tucked under carbon fiber fender flares add a finishing touch to the track-inspired look.

When he drives up to the slopes, Olsson can keep the inside of his wagon clean by storing his skies in a clear-coated carbon fiber roof box manufacturer by 56 Nord. The box reportedly took the company over a year to design and build.

Spring is here and the skiing season is quickly coming to an end, meaning that the RS 6 likely won’t see snow until later this year. That doesn’t mean it’s going to sit in a garage, and Jon is planning on driving it in this year’s edition of the Gumball 3000 rally that will run from Stockholm, Sweden, to Las Vegas, Nevada.

Ronan Glon
Ronan Glon is an American automotive and tech journalist based in southern France. As a long-time contributor to Digital…
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