Family Squabbles: RS 3 vs RS 5 vs RS 6 Avant!

What was to have been a three-way drag and roll battle between RS trio goes astray when supposedly detuned RS 6 Avant arrives tuned to 11.

Which Audi RS is Best Audi RS? It’s a question that’s hard to answer. After all, some are happy with the RS 3’s small size and performance. Others, meanwhile, might need the room an RS 6 Avant or RS Q8 offer to go with the performance. Even the midsize RS 5 and RS 7 Sportback bring their own reasons for existing to the performance table. It’s truly hard to choose the overall best from the best.

YouTuber Sam CarLegion recently attempted to answer that question in a three-way battle between the RS 3, the RS 5, and the RS 6 Avant. However, the biggest of the bunch brought a shotgun when it was supposed to bring a knife to the fight.

“This one is quite interesting,” said Sam. “It’s a bit scary, too, because I haven’t done that many high-performance cars […] I kind of have an idea of who is going to win this, but I might be wrong, because I’ve been wrong before. We’re just here to have fun, but we also find out how these things are against each other.”

Sam’s bet, of course, is on the RS 6 Avant. After all, it packs 591 horsepower and 590 lb-ft of torque to the corners. However, you might’ve noticed the BHP stat on the Audi reading as “unknown.” That’s because the white whale had a tune, one that was supposed to be flashed back to OEM prior to the meeting.

About that…

“The reason the RS 6 is that fast is because it’s tuned,” Sam writes above. “I was told that the car would be returned to stock engine for this video, but it evidently wasn’t.”

In response to a comment, Sam says he didn’t know it was still tuned until the end of the day. Thus, the real battle was between the RS 3 and RS 5 Sportback. In normal mode, the lighter RS 3 pulls away on the first and second runs. Once Sam learns how to make the most of the RS 5, though, he takes the third run in full sport mode. The fourth drag and single roll runs, however, belong to the RS 3.

“Looking at the video and all that, I think the RS 6 is definitely tuned,” said Sam. “It makes a lot more horsepower than these two, which technically doesn’t make it a fair video. I wasted my money and my time […] people weren’t honest with me.”

We’d love to see this battle again, but this time with an honest RS 6 Avant owner. That guy didn’t need to flex so hard, after all; his rig would’ve been enough without the tune installed.

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Cameron Aubernon

Cameron Aubernon’s path to automotive journalism began in the early New ’10s. Back then, a friend of hers thought she was an independent fashion blogger.

Aubernon wasn’t, so she became one, covering fashion in her own way for the next few years.

From there, she’s written for: Louisville.com/Louisville Magazine, Insider Louisville, The Voice-Tribune/The Voice, TOPS Louisville, Jeffersontown Magazine, Dispatches Europe, The Truth About Cars, Automotive News, Yahoo Autos, RideApart, Hagerty, and Street Trucks.

Aubernon also served as the editor-in-chief of a short-lived online society publication in Louisville, Kentucky, interned at the city’s NPR affiliate, WFPL-FM, and was the de facto publicist-in-residence for a communal art space near the University of Louisville.

Aside from her contributions to Audi World, Aubernon can be found all through the IB Auto Group family, including 6 Speed Online, LS1Tech, and Team Speed. She also has her own independent automotive blog, Aubernon Highway.

Aubernon can be reached through her public Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook accounts. She is wary of those she doesn’t already know, though; thus, she may not respond to messages sent.

Aubernon is a member of the International Motor Press Association, and the Washington Automotive Press Association.