It's a real shame, but I didn't feel I was exploiting the car's amazing potential often enough to justify keeping it.
Most of my miles are covered crawling in and out of London, and to keep doing it in the RS6 seemed almost sacrilegious. (It was also costing me a small fortune for the privilege, but then I'd expected that.)
Another reason for its departure is that I was feeling guilty about being so uptight when the family was onboard (we've a three year old who was always told to remove her shoes before entering Daddy's car) and with another baby due next month, family trips aren't about to get any less messy.
So what's its replacement?
Well no R8 or return to 911s for me (just yet).
I've fallen into the family wagon mire big time, and pick up a Merc E350CDI estate tomorrow. While it may be big, comfy and fairly fuel-efficient I know it's not going to make me smile anywhere near as much as the RS6 did, but hey ho.
It'll be interesting to see how long this self-imposed exodus from performance motoring lasts. I'm already looking at prices of used Renaultsport Clios...
In the meantime, take care everyone and enjoy your cars. As I said, they are quite ridiculously awesome machines and I'm not sure we'll be seeing that many of their ilk again.
