Compare 2006 Audi A4 to 2006 Audi A6

Audi is preparing a major mid-cycle freshening of its A4 sedan and wagon, prior to a full ground-up redesign thats planned for 2008. The face-lifted A4 debuts this fall in Europe and should arrive in U.S. dealerships next spring, probably as a 2006 model. Less

If your car-purchasing motives include impressing the boorish burghers of the County Orange, there are plenty of flashy cars at the $50,000 price point that bounce the needle more.The A6 Avant is a car for people with money who would really rather not make an issue of it -- your anonymous-opera-benefactor types.It's also quietly gorgeous. Redesigned for 2006 and just hitting the market, the station wagon has a newly sleek skin that looks curried by the wind, a restyling that buffs out any linearity of the previous design, which wasn't exactly boxy to begin with. All the exterior detailing is vacu-formed, sucked into the bodywork: The glass and polished window surrounds are nearly flush; the door handles are embedded into the sheet metal; the lighting instruments (including the new LED tail lamps) wrap around like a military contractor's sunglasses. Less