Audi RS6

Sit inside first. Nappa leather, contrast stitching, RS-specific bucket seats that hold you the way a roll cage would if roll cages came upholstered. The cabin says nothing about what's under the bonnet — quilted leather, piano-black trim, a virtual cockpit that could belong to any well-optioned Audi estate. Five seats, proper legroom, a boot built for golf bags and dog crates. This is the point.

Then you start it. The 4.0-litre TFSI twin-turbo V8 wakes with a flat, mechanical bark, not a scream — 591 hp and a wall of torque routed through quattro all-wheel grip that turns wet roundabouts into non-events. Nought to a hundred disappears in well under four seconds. Top speed sits north of 300 km/h, the kind of number usually reserved for cars with two seats and no boot space.

None of it shows on the outside. Grey paint, roof rails, badge deleted if the owner's feeling quiet. The RS6 doesn't ask to be noticed. It just leaves. Family wagon, quad exhausts, four rings, one very serious engine bay. Sleeper doesn't begin to cover it.