Audi won't follow Mercedes-Benz in ditching family-friendly body style

Wagons continue to disappear from the Australian market, but Audi is sticking with them.

“It’s a choice that we sit in in a segment where some others don’t have a product. Some people don’t like high up cars. Some people like Avants,” Audi Australia director Jeff Mannering told CarExpert.

Audi offers the A4 Avant in Australia, as well as a high-riding allroad version and the hotter S4 and RS4. It also sells the A6 allroad and the hot twin-turbo V8-powered RS6 Avant.

“I think we have lots of customers that do keep coming back as wagon owners, that do tend to fall into that segment where they do like to repurchase,” said Claudia Muller, senior executive for corporate communications.

“[We value] the breadth of our range and having those bespoke offerings that maybe some competitors don’t have as well. There’s a customer for everything.

“So I think that’s part of the point to us for continuing to bring these cars in.”

While rival BMW continues to sell the 3 Series Touring and recently introduced the RS4 Avant-rivalling M3 Touring – with an electric i5 Touring following this year – fellow German brand Mercedes-Benz has discontinued all its wagons here to focus on SUVs.

“For Audi, we’re known as the kind of Avant wagon brand and that is part of the appeal,” said product planning manager Peter Strudwicke.

That appeal is especially strong with its performance models.

In 2023, the RS6 Avant accounted for 73 per cent of combined RS6 and RS7 sales.

While Audi doesn’t sell an RS4 sedan, he noted the brand sells twice as many RS4 Avants in Australia as it does RS5 Sportbacks.

“That’s a car that breaks the normal rule that Aussie family buyers have moved to SUVs rather than wagons,” he said.

Drop down to the less powerful A4 and S4, though, and the sedans are the strongest sellers with the Avants accounting for around 20 per cent of sales.

Audi currently offers almost every wagon it makes in Australia, with a notable exception being the S6 Avant.

The company recently revealed the new A5 and S5 Avant, which will replace the current A4 and S4.

It also revealed its first electric wagon, the A6 Avant e-tron, while the current A6 Avant’s replacement – to be renamed A7 Avant – has been spied testing in wagon guise.

Outside of Audi and BMW, there are only a small handful of wagons in Australia from luxury brands.

This includes the Genesis G70 Shooting Brake, Volvo V60 Cross Country, and Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo.

MORE: Mercedes-Benz says once-popular family car is a niche too far in Australia