I was out driving the other day when I encountered a particular A6. It was not the brand new style, but the one before that (the Audi 100 body style I believe). It looked brand new though. The exhaust was a dual square cut design, much like a Remus but without the rolled edges on the tips. There was an "S" badge on the rear. I run up alongside the guy at a light, and he noticed my car and rolled his window down. We exchanged some comments, then his wife said to me "and which Audi is yours, we couldn't tell because there were no badges on the back". I told them it was a supercharged A4. The guy driving the car asked me how much power it was putting out, and I said 280hp. He pointed his finger toward the front hood of his car and said "285". He then asked me if I knew what his car was, and I said an S6. He mentioned something about a hoppen chip. It all happened quickly at the light, and then we both drove off in separate directions. I then started thinking that the S6 was not available in the '96 or '97 A6. This car had to be a '97 A6 (and did have the A6 and not the 100 badge), which had the 12v V6. So I started wondering how he possible could have 285hp in that car. They never made a turbo version of the 12v V6, did they? It was only the 5 cylinder engine with the turbo, correct? <p>Basically, I am wondering if this guy was full of crap, or did he actually have an '96 or '97 S6, if there was such a beast? I didn't think there was. Certianly, if the car he was driving had the 12V V6, regardless of whether he had a hoppen chip or a potato chip, there was no way it was putting out 285hp without a turbo. Anyone care to shed some light on this?<p>Mike<p>P.S. The reason I thought of posting this was due to the comment on S4 badges below where the poster said that you don't see S6 badges on A6's. I thought to myself, hey, I might have seen just that!

the last year was 1995 (although I beleive there was a 1995.5 version also). The S6 never had an A6 badge on it and I can't imagine an S6 owner putting one on so this particular car/driver was full of s**t. An easy way to tell the difference between an A6 and S6 is the larger fender flares of the S6. Also, a real S6 didn't have square exhaust tips and only had the 20V turbo motor with a manual transmission. There was no production 12V turbo V6 gas engine.

I know they stopped selling the S6 in CA 1 or 2 years before they stopped in "less-strict" states.

It may have been selling into '96 if there were leftovers (doubtful), but there were no MY'96 or '97 S6 sedans in the US. Rest of the word got the S6+ I think, which was the A8 engine in the S6 body...<p>Jon<br>'96 A4qs

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'95 was last year for S6 in the U.S.; didn't pass '96 emissions. Came as a sedan or a wagon (wagon was '95 MY only). Stayed in production as '95s until the very end of calendar '95; those built late in the year had the very minor '96 model year changes (different radio, remote, colors).