(First Posted Sept. 29, 2013) Working in San Francisco during the dotcom era, I had a job that I found boring but that allowed me a lot of time to surf the internet without any hassle. Of course I spent much of that time visiting car forums, looking at car ads, etc. At the time I still had my 1993 Audi S4 and always kept an eye out for what I really wanted…
…A 1995 or 1995.5 Audi S6 Avant. While they did come up for sale from time to time, mostly they were either nowhere near me, had a very large number of miles, or the color was not right. Then, one day, I finally found it. Being sold by Sunset Porsche-Audi in Beaverton, Oregon, was the perfect car.
But first, a bit of history. Audi had sold the S4 between 1992 and 1994, then when the Audi 100 was slightly updated and renamed the Audi A6, the S4 was renamed the S6 (which made sense since the A4 was being introduced for the 1996 model year in the US). However, as a bonus, Audi also decided to sell the S6 Avant (Audi-speak for wagon) over here.
Why 1995.5? Well, as of 1996 all cars sold here were required to be OBDII-compliant. Audi knew that a new A6 was around the corner and did not want to do the necessary modifications just for this market for what was a very low-volume model. Hence, the S6 was sold here as a 1995 and after that model year, continued to be sold as a 1995.5 through 1996.
There are 1996 and even 1997 S6’s in Canada, but not in the US. This was also the last car that was sold with Audi’s turbo 5-cylinder engine, the roots of which go back to the late 70’s, even though in recent years there has again been a different 5-cylinder turbo available in some higher-end TT models.
As far as the Avant goes, it is one of the rarest Audi’s ever sold over here. A total of 435 were sold over the two years in North America. Sticker price was just over $50,000 when new and the wagons command a premium on the used car market to this day relative to the sedan version.
Like the sedans, over here they were all 5-speed manuals, with a 5-cylinder 20V turbocharged engine producing 227hp and 258lb-ft of torque that is easily modifiable to well into the 300’s for both numbers without much effort at all. They came pretty much loaded, the wagons all even included the rear-facing bench that flipped up from the cargo area floor.
There were some minor differences between the 95’s and the 95.5’s on top of all the minor body changes after 1994, most notably to do with the central locking and some minor differences in the dashboard, but also the ABS system was updated to a newer version as well as later cars not having the locking rear differential but gaining a very nice 3-spoke Audi Sport steering wheel that is a popular upgrade to older models. The easiest way to tell the year is to look for the little nub on the outside of the driver side B-pillar, if it is there it’s a 1995 or earlier car, it has to do with the central locking.
Back to mine – the one I found was Black with Ecru leather and was being offered for around $22,000. It had 61,000 miles on it and was a one-owner car which had been serviced exclusively at the selling dealership until being traded in on a Porsche. The car looked fantastic in the pictures and after speaking with a salesman over the phone, everything still sounded good.
I was a bit nervous about buying it without actually seeing it, so I posted a request on the Audifans page for someone in the area who could eyeball it for me. Very quickly a person in Portland said he’d be happy to do so the next day. Well, he called me from the lot and basically said if I did not buy it, then he was going to figure out a way to get the money together himself, there was nothing at all wrong with the car, it was like new and visually flawless.
So I called the salesman, we haggled for a bit and in the end I paid around $21,000 for the car. I put a deposit down via credit card and told him I’d be up on Saturday morning. I discussed it with my friend Jim and we decided the best thing to do would be to rent a car to drive up from the Bay Area after work on Friday and then get the car and drive back on Saturday. Which we did, we ended up arriving at the dealership around 5am, it was just getting light, and after walking around the lot we realized the car was locked up inside.
So we napped in the rental and waited for the dealership to open. Once they did, we went in, introduced ourselves and looked the car over. It was as described and would not have looked out of place on their new-car showroom floor, it was that clean. The salesman gave me a copy of all of the receipts and had someone top up the coolant as it was a hair low and after doing the paperwork we headed off with the car, first to the airport to drop the rental off and then back South on I-5 towards home.
As an aside, most of the pictures here are from a recent for sale ad for someone else’s car. My friend Jim saw it and alerted me to it and we both spent some time trying to figure out if it was my actual car. It turns out it was not but the car is absolutely identical in every aspect to mine. If you go back to my S4 post from a few weeks ago, my S6 can be seen lurking in the background in several pictures.
I was just in seventh heaven, the car was gorgeous and drove fantastic. Obviously very similar to my ’93 S4 but different in a few ways, the wagon body has a different rear suspension which reacts slightly differently and of course my S4 had been fairly heavily modified. When we stopped for lunch, we noticed a slight puddle under car, which turned out to be coolant. Both of us owning these cars, we popped the hood and quickly realized it was coming from the auxiliary water pump, which continues to circulate coolant throughout the engine after shutdown and has a history of cracking at the connections and requiring replacement.
Since the level was still fine, we continued and made it home without incident. Monday morning I ordered a new pump, which I installed a couple of days later in a matter of minutes. It is SO nice to work on a car with which you are familiar and knowing how to do a repair that you had to do on a previous one. I guess the only thing better is not having to do the repair in the first place!
Over the next few weeks I transferred the turbo, manifold, ECU, Porsche brakes, larger wheels and the other items I had modified on my S4 to the S6 and sold the S4 since that was the deal I had struck with my wife. Truth be told, having five cars and a motorcycle was a little much for the two of us (plus baby) in a small house without any land and it was time to whittle down the fleet a bit.
The car looked great and performed exceptionally well. However, over the next year I realized I missed the S4. While I loved the wagon and couldn’t believe the condition it was in, I was still commuting over the bridge and parking it in San Francisco. I lived in some fear of getting dinged or scratched and/or deteriorating the car; nowadays I am pretty much over those kinds of things (it’s just a car!) but at the time this car was (to me) something of a preservation item.
I’m not sure if a lot of people will understand this mindset, you have to be a diehard fan of something in particular and know that there are not many like it (although the populace at large would not care at all). I was also hesitant to drive around in this car with our baby, mainly because I realized how messy the other cars had become and she had a bit of a penchant for car sickness at the time.
The other thing was that while I had always been supremely comfortable in the S4, to be honest this S6 felt a bit different sitting in it. After checking around, it appeared that Audi had changed the type of leather on the surface of the seats and also apparently mounted the seats slightly higher on the newer cars. It just did not feel like the same kind of “pocketed” seating feel that I was used to even though the seats were comfortable and technically there was nothing wrong with it.
Eventually I came to realize that while I loved the car, it was time to move on. Between the nagging fear of somehow messing it up somehow and the fact that in the end I did like the old S4 better (for no objective reason), I ended up taking off most of the modifications and selling them on eBay for significantly more than I had paid for them (yay to currency exchange fluctuations over time!) and advertised the car for sale. Fairly soon another Audi fan from the San Jose area came up, looked the car over, couldn’t find any faults and in the end paid me slightly more than I had paid for the car two years prior.
Jim,
As you promised, this COAL was another beautifully detailed story about one of the rare original five cylinder Audi S-cars. During my search for an S4/S6 I learned about the S6 Avant but did not know that they were this rare. It is even rarer than the Europe-only, V8-powered S6 Avant Plus, which sold almost a thousand.
I never found an Avant for sale, but after buying my 1995.5 S6 I developed a habit of finding them in my everyday driving environment (commuting routes, parking garages), eventually identifying three that I would see on a regular basis. None were kept in the condition of yours; they all looked like the slightly faded everyday drivers of car enthusiasts.
Your mention of the leaking auxiliary water pump brought back memories for me, as a leaking auxiliary water pump was the first problem that my S6 developed. I drove the car for over a month before I figured it out, including a 500+ mile round trip in the middle of which I discovered the problem. I found the small puddle of coolant that would appear under the car only after shutdown to be baffling, and the Audi s-cars forums were very helpful in diagnosing the problem, as up to that point I had no idea that the auxiliary water pump existed. You may have been one of the people who helped me then!
Robert, the number was of examples sold in the US, there were definitely more sold in Europe, in fact I’d guess the wagon was more plentiful than the sedan over there. I did have the pleasure of riding in Frederic L’Huillier’s S6Plus Avant in Paris several times, that thing was magnificent in Nogaro Blue with the V8, blue alcantara inserts, Carbon Fiber everywhere and 3 baby seats in the back seat!
It is weird when the same failure point occurs in subsequent cars, usually I knew exactly where to go for the part and how to fix it, making it much less frustrating than the first go-round. Just yesterday I was cleaning out my desk drawer and found my modified power-steering X-plug socket tool, wrapped in the bag that the new X-plug came in with the part number on it, just in case I ever get another S4/6… 🙂
Another excellent story of a very rare car. If I were an “Audi guy”, I am sure that this car would have lit my fire as well.
When you relate your fears of messing up such a pristine car, I can relate. At age 18, I had removed every piece of trim from my 67 Galaxie 500 convertible, then took it to one of the best body shops in town to have the rusted panels cut out, new ones welded in and the entire car painted. After what seemed like forever, the car came back, looking absolutely like new. I reassembled it and immediately began living in fear of every possible door ding or rock chip.
As you did, I eventually got past that idea that my car was some kind of museum piece that needed a curator rather than a driver, but then I simply could not allow all of my hard work and expense be ruined by salted roads or some careless driver. I tried to turn it into a summer cruiser with another car for regular transportation, but was not in a financial position to make that work. I wonder how life might have been different if I had kept the Galaxie and continued driving it.
Although our tastes in cars are different, I am thoroughly enjoying this series.
Thanks! Glad you find it enjoyable, I’ve personally found all of the COAL series the most enjoyable reading here (although ALL the posts on CC are of excellent quality and interesting), no matter the car in question.
A car guy is a car guy (or lady in the case of Gem), I think at the core it does not matter what the subject is, automotive history is so interwoven among different manufacturers that you can always find something of interest when reading about any car even if you have a dedicated favorite…
Once a gain, an excellent way to start Sunday morning. I can really relate to you Audi-phelia. These were from a time when Audi had really come into its golden era, with cars that were technically so different from MB and BMW. Having watched Audi evolve over the decades from its humble origins to cars like this was history in the making. And you’ve really brought them alive again for me, at a time when these are starting to slip off the radar.
Thanks Paul – the C4 chassis S4/S6 in particular are probably the most solid cars Audi ever built and the fact that they were so low-key pretty much ensured they remained in enthusiast hands who gave them the correct care. There are many examples out there with over 200k miles and still going very strongly.
Again another great Audi. Audi really climbed the ladder in the past 25 to 30 years.
The Audi 80 and 100 of the eighties were the firestarters. Especially the 80 was a bestseller, lots of them still on the road as daily drivers thanks to the good build quality and the superb rust proofing.
Audis are clean and cool, no ornaments needed to turn a turd into a pie. My neighbor has a dark grey A6 Avant 2.7 TDI Quattro, I believe it’s a 2008 car (I think it’s the modern diesel-equivalent of this CC S6). It’s fast, has lots of space, it handles great and it’s fuel efficient. What more could one wish for ?
Only the Q7 is too much….WAY too much. However, I wouldn’t turn down a testdrive in the 6.0 ltr. V12 TDI. (Forget modern cars running on turps or your wife’s make-up brush cleaners, I prefer TRUCK FUEL !)
Such a beautiful car. As I’ve commented before on your Audi posts, I love early-90s Audis. What I’ve never said is how much I envy you for the chance to own and experience such a large number of cars, that most coincidently, I happen to be huge fans of. I guess we have similar tastes when it comes to the cars we like.
BTW I’m the same way with my car. My car’s not as rare as 1 of 435, although there can’t be more than a few thousand V6 TSXs in existence, but even when I had my 9-year old Highlander, I was still parked it in the outskirts of parking lots away from other cars.
I recall when this car went up for sale – I kept thinking about bidding on it, even though I live 2,400 miles away! I figured since it had shown up on German Cars For Sale Blog it would end up in enthusiast hands.
Yes – I should explain to other readers. The car in most of the pix was recently for sale on ebay. It ended up selling for just over $5000 which even with the miles on it was a steal considering the apparent condition. I attempted to get in touch with the owner before using these pix but never got a response. Obviously there were other pix I could have used but this one is absolutely identical to mine so I hope he does not mind. When writing these articles I obviously prefer to use my actual photos no matter how low quality they are, but if none are available I do what I can to find pictures that are as close as possible in color and specification. Usually it takes me longer to select pictures that to write the post.
I also considered bidding on this car but the stable is full currently. That GCFS blog is also a great read, the eye candy the guy finds is wonderful – In regard to german cars he seems to scoop Bring A Trailer regularly nowadays.
GCFSB is great! Eye candy, window shopping.. it helps that Carter really knows and likes Audis and wants to encourage people to buy them..
Interesting about the seats – I assume that’s the case for the S6 sedan vis a vis the S4? I hadn’t really picked up on this one since they look so similar in pictures of the S4.. I’ve only ever driven the S6, and only the one I own, and I occasionally wish I could lower the seat about 1.5″ from the lowest setting.
These cars are not just unicorns but pegasus-unicorns down here in Florida.
Walter (who owns a ’95 S6 sedan)
Hey, great car you have there! I’m not positive about the S6 sedan seats but it would stand to follow. They LOOK identical but to me felt a bit different. However it could also be a 95 vs 95.5 difference? (Or just me?) On top of that, I always had the seat in full down position so to me I found something different, anyone who is not as low would not even notice. Sounds like you are tall though as well. Let me know if you ever have questions, Robert Kim (another contributor) had one as well…
Yes, I’m 6’3″. I fit but I’d have to lean the seat back if I wore a helmet.
I definitely feel higher in the car than I did in my old (B5) A4. Part of that of course is the old-school low belt-line. I love a car I can actually see out of.
Interesting: I stumbled onto this searching for OBD2 access information.
My “early” S6A has 285K miles, and mass spec oil analysis does not find any abnormal wear. Great daily driver, though a bit shabby from use. I have retired the “rack wagon” from track use. Yes, I have met two of you.
Bruce Parker HPDE instructor ACNA & others
I was working for the VW dealership (Herzog-Meier) across the street from Sunset P/A from late ’97 to 2000. Worked for Sunset (on the Porsche side) in 2002/2003.
Probably parked my ’86 Jetta (still driving it today) on 139th way at 7:45 AM as you were waking up from your nap waiting for Sunset to open. Your S6 Avant was a real beauty.
Awesome story. I don’t know a thing about Audis so it’s an education to me.
It might not have been what you wanted, but at least you don’t lay awake wondering what if!
I love the story, and am glad that it ended happily for all involved. It shows that sometimes, unrequited love is not a bad thing. Like meeting the girl you lusted over in high school at the twenty year reunion just to find out she is not who you wanted in your life after all. In this case, the one that did not get away ended up being less than perfect, but everyone got a happy ending.
I own a 1995 Audi S6 Sedan, since I bought it from the Audi/VW dealer in Barrie, Ontario in 1996. It has just become a Insurance Corporation of BC
“Collector” vehicle, at 25 years and 310k km and 1 rebuild of the engine (not required).
The last comment on this site was 2018, now is 2020. Are there others who think the 1995 S6 was the best engineered vehicle?
I don’t know if anyone will see this since it’s such an old post, but I wanted to thank you for writing it. I’m just a wife who knows nothing about cars (besides if it looks like how a child would draw a car, is a wagon, or has pop up headlights my husband will probably love it) trying to decide if my husband is crazy for wanting to trade his 2014 Q5 for a 1995.5 S6 Avant. He works at an Audi dealership, so I knew they wouldn’t sell him something that wasn’t worth it, but hearing an old year still made me nervous.
After reading how you and everyone in the comments talked about it, I realize now that it is truly more than “just a car”.