Quick though it may be, Ray Leathern is finding it hard to make an emotional connection to the supercharged Audi A6 Quattro.

I’d have thought the motor industry would’ve had the good sense to discard the antiquated, mid-sized luxury sedan by now. Not only are vehicles in this segment expensive, uneconomical, environmentally challenging, not always rewarding to drive and famously bad at holding their resale value, but every year it seems, new models are just forged from thin air with a view to killing them off.

Think over the last decade: the SUV, the Soft Roader SUV, the Four Door Coupe, the Crossover, BMW’s Sports Activity Vehicle, and now the even smaller hatchback, urban, crossover thing that is the Nissan Juke. All have been concocted to give sedan buyers something else to think about, as if the manufacturers themselves are getting bored of churning out the same old thing. Yet these sedans survive.

From this we can infer that restraint plays an inherent part in their justification. Compelling, I believe, the most conservative designers and engineers to work on these projects. I’ll admit, I’ve always thought the Audi A6 was one of the blandest of the lot, but this new supercharged one might be showing me the errors of my preconceptions.

The A6’s DNA traces back to 1997 when Ferdinand Piech took up his new position as head of the VW Group and started instigating his “few platforms, many shared components” strategy in building models right across the VW, Audi, Skoda and Seat range. The cross pollination idea took form for the first time in the Audi A6 and VW Passat. Voila! Those of you who bemoan platform sharing (and I am one of them) now know which model to hang your hat. You will recall the first A6 by its large ocean liner rear-end and Bauhaus / Art Deco inspired symmetry, a-la Audi TT. Never meant to be a technological showcase, Audi at least used inspired design to discern the A6 from the humble VW Passat. Have things followed suit in 2011?

First impressions on the styling from the A6 3.0T FSI are that the conservativeness is entrenched in the A6. Audi’s bespoke LED running lights come in a mad strip of craziness, like an acne addled teenager designed them, which speaks to me of overcompensation. The A6 was always meant to be discreet, but with those headlights it’s now all of a sudden drawing quite a lot of attention to itself. I much preferred the plain strip on the old A6.

There is extensive use of soft leather and aluminium inlays in the interior and the latest generation Audi Multi Media Interface (MMI) offers 3D Sat-Nav and all the usual executive bells and whistles. On the whole, the interior is better to behold than the exterior I feel. It’s a bit of button fest and loads of information is being communicated to you constantly on the dash or centre console, but it captures a sporty, executive luxuriousness that investment bankers and start-up millionaires cannot do without.

Although the 3.0-litre V6 engine, which produces 220 kW and 440 Nm of torque, uses the TFSI nomenclature, it is in fact a supercharged motor. It’s a bit less powerful than the S4 and S5 engines, but it has the same torque figure so it is a very eager motor, supplying its torque from anywhere in the range thanks to said supercharger. Audibly, it is toned down though, not giving any supercharger whine atop its V6 drone, which is disappointing as the sound would be an exciting caveat to its bat out of hell grunt… 0 – 100 km/h in 5.5 seconds and a governed top speed of 250 km/h. That’s not brilliantly fast, but it feels more urgent than it sounds and it loves to hurl itself towards the horizon. That is due to its Quattro all-wheel-drive solidity of course and the fact that it’s made out of pieces of aluminium (not a space frame though, as Audi were once famous for), which is meant to keep the weight low and lower down to the ground for efficiency and dynamism.

In terms of handling and driving enjoyment, it certainly pulls off the ‘two-faced’ attitude you’d expect from a fast, luxurious Audi. It can dawdle around the financial districts of the world slowly and effortlessly, but when it comes time to make a quick getaway with all the bearer bonds in the boot, it shunts up the side of a mountain with mature gusto. It’s not an S or an RS Audi so it’s not razor sharp and so low its scraping its nose on the ground, but it easily gets the heart pumping and the adrenaline gushing when you put the hammer down. The 7-speed S-Tronic transmission does a great job of managing expectations between those two dualities, being sporty when needed and silky smooth the rest of the time.

Overall though, I’m struggling to love this Audi A6. I don’t know why really. I guess it’s just not the type of car you form an attachment with and that gets to me. It does everything as it should, it’s fast, luxurious, discreet (except for the headlights), filled to the brim with technology and well made, but I think it needs slightly more ‘surprise and delight,’ as designers with fashionable, black rimmed glassed would say; to win me over. Another thing is, I’m not entirely convinced it’s better than an E-Class or a 5-Series. In fact I’m almost certain it isn’t. The newest car arriving into a segment should be the best in that segment, at least until the others bring out a new or facelifted model down the line. The Audi A6 falls a bit short of what’s already out there, and that’s just not good enough.

What we like…

• The sure footed high speed handling.
• Six cylinder engine delivers great, pulverising torque.
• Comfortable and hi-tech interior with more buttons than you’ll ever need.
• It’s pretty well priced and specified to start with, although you will want more from the options list

What we would like…

• The stylists at Audi to kick it up a gear. Ingolstadt influences are getting a bit dreary these days.
• A sprinkle of fairy dust, just to give it that bit of zing that big Audi’s lack.

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Ray Leathern has been test driving and critiquing cars for four years now. He is South Africa’s 2010 Motoring Journalist of the Year in the magazine category, as well as a member of SA’s 2011 Car of the Year jury. What Ray writes, we read, and we suggest you do too.