In the Audi lexicon, “Avant” defines the station wagon silhouette evoking at the same time the quest for progress that has always distinguished the work of the brand with the four rings, alongside it a story of great success characterized by the always appreciable mix of practicality, style and performance.
The timeline of the family bodywork, signed by Audi, materializes in 1982 with the model called 100 Avant in a debut that immediately changed the perception of the family car, thanks to the unprecedented combination of space, versatility and speed that today as then, remain core values of station wagons made in Ingolstadt.
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In the following decades, the Avant recipe has further refined becoming one of the most famous and sought after body configurations by the public. 40 years after the launch of the first Avant, the family members of the German company continue to pursue their work of seduction with refinement and state-of-the-art technologies; the speech concerns in particular Italy where the A4 Avant once again dominated the ranking of the best-selling station wagons.
Specifically, the award-winning history of the Avant range acquires its identity with the launch of the third generation of the Audi 100 (also known under the code name Type 44 or C3). Proposed at the time with a four-door sedan and Avant bodywork, the model proved to be an unexpected commercial success, so much so that it was produced continuously in China, until 2002.
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However, it is interesting to note that the 100 Avant C3 was not the first Audi station wagon ever as in 1977, the Ingolstadt-based designers and engineers applied a fastback body (basically a family car with a sloping roof) to the second generation Audi 100. In terms of form and function, the 5-door car introduced in the second half of the 1970s can be considered the precursor model of today’s Sportbacks; another lucky Audi aesthetic intuition that will establish itself in the new millennium, simultaneously expanding the range of action of the manufacturer and the stylistic options of the different models in the range.
The quintessence of the Avant style, however, is to be found in the debut of the first average station wagon called Audi 80 Avant; presented in 1992 and considered the progenitor of the contemporary A4 Avant, the car ensured a valiant contribution to the status of premium brand sought after by Audi, offering customers high quality finishes, avant-garde material choices, reliability and lively performance supported by an aligned driving pleasure to the sedan version. Another merit of the model was that of modifying the public’s perception of station wagons which at the time were associated with almost exclusively work purposes or related to family transport. The dads fond of speed performance, found in fact in the sporting derivation of the 80 Avant (the RS 2 Avant) an irreplaceable ally for long journeys at high rhythms, driven by drumming cavalry.
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The year 1994 runs and the initials RS, in addition to inaugurating a new important chapter in the history of the brand, effectively establishes the idolized segment of high-performance families. Equipped with a 315 horsepower 20-valve 5-cylinder turbo engine, the RS2 Avant will stand out right from the start for its advanced engine architecture (still in use today) and for the effectiveness of the quattro drive with self-locking central differential, developed in competitions. and in rallies. The two letters of the acronym RennSport (racing in German), will then be re-proposed on the Audi RS 4 Avant of 1999, and powered by the V6 2.7 biturbo with 5 valves per cylinder. Even more sensational for numbers and appeal in the immediate as in the long-term imaginary is the debut of the first series of Audi RS6. Introduced in 2002 and also offered in the Avant and sedan configurations, the four-ring family sports car will establish itself in the following twenty years as the maximum expression of the high-performance wagon, thanks to the ability to combine acceleration and top speed of a real supercar. , with the usability, safety, practicality and generous cargo volumes of Audi family cars.
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Forty years after the beginning and twenty years after the first RS, the station wagons of the German company continue to pursue the paths of motoring excellence, through continuous and well-considered updates in turn conceived around the stylistic features of contemporary mobility. Hence, the history of the Avant range is preparing to celebrate a new milestone in its incessant evolution with the imminent large-scale production of the Audi A6 Avant e-tron whose fascinating concept admired at the Audi House of Progress during the Milan Design Week of 2022, expresses the German brand’s turning point towards sustainability. And if a good day starts in the morning, the show car based on the PPE electric platform with quattro electric four-wheel drive and 476 horsepower will certainly be able to give continuity to the Avant myth, updating its design, function and propulsion.