If you drew a Venn diagram of people who’d driven a new RS4, and people who reckon it’s a bit soft and needs toughening up, you’d probably find that the crossover is quite small. But sitting happily within that sliver is legendary modding outfit ABT. If you’re not familiar with the name, ABT Sportsline was founded as a tuning and motorsport operation in 1991, although the company’s roots can actually be traced way back to 1896! In recent times they’ve developed such impressive models as the Audi R8 GT R (basically a road-legal race car) and the savage RS5-R among much else, as well as running Audi A4s in the DTM.
ABT SPORTSLINE REIMAGINES THE RS4 AVANT
Essentially, when ABT tinker with a car, you know it’s going to be good. And what they’ve done here is to take the 2020 RS4 and pump its performance up to somewhere around the level of the far more expensive RS6. The standard car comes with 444bhp and 443lb.ft; ABT’s Power S kit ups this to 523bhp and 502lb.ft, which is a pretty healthy increase achieved by a remap and revised induction, with the option of an uprated intercooler. The key takeout here is that the 0-62mph time is comfortably under four seconds. And that’s just mental.