Horchaus, the Canadian distributor for MTM, has been given permission by Audi to import Europe-only Audis into North America. The cars in question are the RS4 Avant, RS4 Convertible, S3, RS6 and RS6 Avant, Q7 V12 TDI and TT RS.
These models were intended for European consumption only, due to the North American market not really liking most of these products, though the RS4 Avant just didn’t get its rear-mounted battery to pass DOT certification.
Because of MTM’s connection in this, you can have your car of choice tuned before it is delivered. For instance, you could go berserk and instead of an RS6 Avant, go straight for the MTM RS6 R (Our Tuned Car of the Year runner-up). 735 hp in a station wagon. You know you like the sound of that.
The pricing looks like a bargain as well. Converting from Euros to dollars, the RS6 costs $150,000 in Europe. However, Horchaus is selling it for just $107,600. That’s not a very big discount compared to this: Supposedly Horchaus can sell you an R8 V10 for just $98,000: roughly half-price of what it costs in a dealership here. Sounds a bit fishy to me.
Nonetheless, it’s something to be excited about. Except that it might not be. While the RS4s shouldn’t have a problem getting through safety regulations and such, the RS6s haven’t been tested. They’ll need to get through tests to be imported here, so we’ll have to wait and see how that goes. Despite this though, some RS6s have already been imported into both Canada and the US. Hopefully it’ll end well and we can finally get our hands on some of those brilliant German masterpieces that Europe’s had for ages now.