Audi reveals £116k+ RS4 that celebrates 25 years of fast, yellow estates

This is the fastest, most powerful and most suspension-y Audi RS4 ever built. It is also very expensive, very rare and – much like the first RS4 – very yellow.

Indeed, this new Audi RS4 Avant ‘edition 25 years’ celebrates – wait for it – a whopping 25 years since the B5-generation RS4 succeeded the RS2 to become the lingua franca of powerful, desirable fast estate cars.

And this one is indeed very desirable; has to be, now that the BMW M3 Touring is here to steal its lunch money. To give it a fighting chance, Audi has upped the power from the 2.9-litre V6 biturbo’s 444bhp to 464bhp – a healthy 20bhp upgrade – though torque stays pegged at 442lb ft.

It’s quicker, the 0-62mph sprint taking just 3.7 seconds – shaving 0.4s over the regular version – and faster, maxing out at 186mph. Slowing it are standard-fit RS ceramic brakes and a full RS-spec sports exhaust.

There’s RS sports suspension pro fitted as standard too, which involves fancy new adjustable coilovers that sit 10mm lower than the standard RS4 Avant, and can be manually adjusted a further 10mm to give you proper splitter-scraping pothole-anxiety.

Audi’s dialled in more negative front camber – two degrees – and installed stiffer control arms, while the rear gets a fixed subframe and the quattro sport diff. This latter thing, says Audi, “ensures greater agility and more rearward bias for increased driving fun”. Considering the RS division’s pivot toward rear-drive hooliganism of late, this does sound like a laugh. Shift times from the gearbox are faster now too.

Looks… great, actually. Especially in that same yellow of the B5. The 20in alloys get two sets of Pirellis: P Zero Corsas for both road and circuit, and an extra set of P Zero Trofeo RS semi-slicks, which are for track use only and come with little sensors inside to feed back tyre pressures and temps.

You’ve got the option of three colours: grey, black, and the fetching ‘Imola yellow’. There’s gloss black trim dotted about the body, matt carbon for the bodykit, and a delete on the roof rails.

Naturally there’s some decorative stitching inside – no self-respecting special edition is complete without it – a standard-fit Bang and Olufsen stereo, 360-degree camera, lots of leather and Alcantara in the cabin, and of course, the most important bit… lettering that dictates your car’s individual build number.

Because they’re only making 250 of these special editions. And only 50 cars are coming to the UK. And where the standard RS4 Avant starts at just under £73k, this one starts at £115,880 for the grey car, £116,555 for the black car, or a whopping £119,180 for the Imola Yellow one. That’s forty-six thousand pounds more than the standard RS4.

Worth it for the fastest, most powerful and most suspension-y Audi RS4 ever built?