How soon we forget about one of the sportiest wagons of the 1990s. That’s right, this is the S6 Avant, which was available for 1995 only in the US, replacing the 100-based S4 sedan and wagon.  North America got these with the 2.2 liter inline-five turbo engine good for hoonage, and also good for 227bhp and a zero to sixty time of 6.7 seconds. Not bad for a station wagon from 1995. Unfortunately, the 4.2 liter V8 was only available in Europe where it was called the S6 Plus.

Naturally, these only came with a manual transmission and an upgraded suspension. Visually the car was set apart by wider wheel arches and larger wheels, though it’s the lower ride height that usually gives these away from a distance. I’d love to see a set of Avus wheels on one of these, but the stock wheels don’t look bad either.

Unfortunately this was a one year-only model for the US, and sold during a time when Audi still hadn’t reached the sales numbers it enjoyed prior to that whole 60 Minutes unpleasantness. To be honest, even if this model was available in the US for three or four years, I don’t think there would be visibly more of them on the streets right now. And when it comes to S6 Avants now, in 2013, I don’t think demand really exceeds supply either. The downside to Audis from this era, the 100/A6 in particular, is that unless you do a lot of the the services and repairs yourself, maintaining these gets very expensive very quickly.

Buying one of these used, I believe, would be easier to justify if we had received these with a 4.2 liter V8. That engine was fairly problem free in the D2 A8 and the Audi V8 that had an earlier version of it. It’s a heavier beast, but it would have given the S6 the 300+bhp that was on tap in the A8. The old S8, some of you will recall, managed to squeeze out an additional 60bhp from that same engine, just tuned in a different manner. So if we had received the S6 with the 4.2 attached to a manual box, I believe the S6 would be remembered a little differently on these shores.

When was the last time you’ve seen one of these?

[Images: Copyright 2013 Hooniverse/Jay Ramey]