Back in 1986, AMG unleashed an E-class with a 360bhp 5.6-litre V8. They called it ‘The Hammer’. Great name, great car. The new RS6 needs a name like that. Its twin-turbo 5-litre V10 has 572bhp and 479lb ft, and if it weren’t for a spoilsport electronic limiter it would crack 200mph with relative ease, passing 62mph in 4.6sec and 124mph in 14.9sec along the way. Let’s just call it The Sledgehammer.

We’re on a narrow thread of French N-road, sun whiting-out against a surface that has been baked and re-baked until it’s smooth and slippery. The RS6 barely gets out of second gear, the revs zinging between 3000 and 5500rpm (there’s still another 1250rpm to play with), and it feels immense, like a force of nature contained and packaged in a humdrum estate-car shape, the box ’arches a clue to the pent-up energy trying to burst into the open.