The numbers on this one are, quite frankly, ridiculous. Eight cylinders, four litres, two turbos, a stonking 621 bhp and a price tag of £140,000. That’s borderline supercar territory, right?

Nah. It’s a practical family estate. Yep. It’s time I finally got behind the wheel of the legendary Audi RS6, and holy cow have I been looking forward to this one.

Let’s deal with the performance straight away, shall we? That’s more power than a Ferrari Roma or a McLaren GT, but with three extra seats, permanent four-wheel drive that will look after you, and a massive boot – this thing swallowed full-sized mountain bikes and was looking for more.

From the second you hit the starter, the sound is distinctive; promising, but understated, as if you don’t need to shout about the fact that it’s an RS6 – if you know, you know. But hit the small button on the steering wheel marked with the RS logo and the noise changes. Quite a lot. Then you select drive, your right foot gets heavy and you find a very expensive (and enjoyable) way of turning petrol into a lot of noise and blistering acceleration.

Near-perfect balance and four-wheel drive means that it holds the road and does what you tell it, and it gets you to the speed limit really quite quickly. If you hit the Autobahns in Germany, the engine would govern you at 176mph – and rumour has it that without this, it would pass 200mph. So it moves; and with the carbon ceramic brakes fitted to this test car, it stops too and does that equally as fast. I’ve genuinely never felt braking like it.

Practicality is incredible

But is it practical? Let’s ignore the fuel economy, other than to acknowledge you’ll be lucky to get much more than 20mpg if you’re being frugal, but you don’t buy an RS to save the pennies at the pumps. Fuel aside, practicality is incredible. The rear seats are spacious, and as I said earlier, the boot is immense. Front passenger and driver space is also very generous, and with all-round parking sensors and cameras, manoeuvring is not that hard either, considering the size of the car.

On to the technology, and as you would expect being a performance Audi, the tech is more than up to the job of keeping you informed and entertained. A great stereo and navigation system, with Apple CarPlay should you prefer that, and Audi’s fantastic virtual cockpit means you can choose from a range of options for the display in front of you. The heads-up display is also very clear, changing format depending on drive mode to give you the most pertinent information to your current mood.

Oh, and with Audi’s night vision assist, the dash becomes a night vision camera which is simply incredible, picking up people, cars, animals – any heat sources – long before you might spot them in the (also impressive) headlights.