Our colleagues at Motor1 UK are on the scene in Frankfurt, putting together videos on some of the hottest cars at the show.
Think Audi sport, you think Quattro. It's the badge that helped transport the rally scene back in the 80's. It also created a pretty amazing series of performance road cars, and a new genre – the uber-fast family wagon.
The Audi RS4 was like parental salvation when it was first introduced. It offered sports car thrills for the driver that had family concession. They could fit kids in the back, dogs in the boot, and have all the space for a family holiday, yet it was still blisteringly rapid. The first car – the RS2 – was released in 1994, and since then there's been an entire lineage of fast Audi wagons that everybody loves.
Now there's a new one, the RS4. It's like the goldilocks of the group. It's not too big, it's not astronomically pricey, and yet it this is still super rapid. Importantly, to the untrained eye, it kind of looks like a regular A4 Avant, but there are few tell-tale signs.
First off, this model is the Nogaro Blue, which is an exclusive paint option for the RS4, and was first premiered on the RS2 back in 1994. You've then got huge 20-inch alloy wheels, 19s are standard, but these have been upgraded because it's a show car. There are lovely bits of carbon fiber on the door mirrors, sills, and a beautiful carbon fiber rear diffuser with the trademark twin tailpipes, which elicit an amazing sound.
Under the hood is a biturbo 2.9-liter V6 petrol engine that develops 444 horsepower (331 kilowatts). 0-62 miles per hour is around 4.1 seconds, and it has an electronically-limited top speed of 155 mph (249 kilometers per hour).
Taking a look inside the interior, you have beautiful hexagonal trim in the seats, RS stamps everywhere, and a bit more carbon fiber.
Prices are expected to start around $70K when it hits the UK next year, but staggeringly this isn't the only fast-Audi news at the 2017 Frankfurt Motor Show.
The Audi R8 V10 RWS (rear wheel series) means a rear-wheel-drive Audi R8. How cool is that? It's like the car we've always been asking for and never got until now. You still have the naturally-aspirated, mid-mounted 5.2-liter V10 powering the rear wheels. You have the deletion of the front prop shaft, which saves 110 pounds (50 kilograms) of weight, but you might lose a little bit of time on the 0-62 sprint.
However, this is going to be much more of a purist's car. The rear wheels the driving and the front wheels do the steering, and you're going to have lots of smoky burnouts in this thing. We cannot wait to drive it.