My mother-in-law hates loud cars. Not just audibly loud, with lots of decibels from the pipes, but brash, demonstrative, in-your-face cars that yell “Look at me!” across six lanes of traffic.
I drive a lot of different cars, so she was nervous when she asked recently for a ride to the airport. “You won’t have anything too horrible, I hope,” she said rhetorically.
My wife chimed in. “Of course he won’t – he said it’ll be an Audi sedan.” And both women looked relieved.
Yes, it would be an Audi sedan, but I left the details vague. I didn’t mention the bit about the performance package and its 605 horsepower, or the titanium Akrapovic exhaust. When I collected the RS7, though, the colour was a surprise: “RS Green,” it was called. That’s a $3,900 word for “bright green.” Bright indeed.
“Does anybody actually buy a car in this awful colour?” my mother-in-law asked when I pulled into her driveway days later. Fortunately, I was there to take her to the airport, so the anticipation of flying to visit her other daughter outweighed the embarrassment of being seen in the car.
I opened the front passenger door and she settled in, looking around the cabin with a sniff. My wife was in the back seat, surprisingly content with the legroom and headroom that often impedes her 5-foot-9 frame. “It’s okay, mom,” she said. “You can’t really see the colour when you’re inside.”
I stored the luggage in the trunk with room to spare, slid in behind the wheel and fired up the engine with a stab at the throttle, more habit than anything. The exhaust crackled with the premium gas igniting against the engine’s eight spark plugs.