SPENDING the best part of £80,000 on an estate car sounds crazy - but not when it comes to Audi.

The German car maker is about to introduce the latest version of its luxury A6 Avant - and the flagship model can be decked out to the nines.

So much so it is possible to almost double the list price with a heady array of extras, no mean feat when the car itself tips the scales at £40,000.

A top grade A6 Avant complete with quattro all wheel drive and a gutsy three-litre diesel costs from £40,940 and comes with satellite navigation, dual zone climate control, leather trim and multi-mode drive settings.

Indulge and the car can be turned into a wonderland of exclusivity featuring a Bang & Olufsen sound system, LED headlights, a head up display and even a night vision camera.

That little lot alone would add £12,500 to the list price and the A6 Avant we have just been driving came with an astonishing £38,600 worth of options taking its overall price to £78,745 - and amusingly even at that price the delivery charge of £590 includes only half a tank of fuel!

Yet as estates go it is in a league of its own and even the more realistically priced versions are pretty sophisticated.

The new Avant line up will be on sale in November and costs from £32,100 for a two-litre diesel with front wheel drive and a manual gearbox.

Three litre diesels versions cost from £36,200 while the only petrol engine in the range is a three-litre turbo fitted to the TFSI quattro at £41,130.

While the two-litre diesel has wide appeal with tax friendly low CO2 emissions of 132g/km and average fuel economy of 56.5mpg it is the three-litre diesel in the quattro which is most impressive.

It is smooth, suave and sophisticated - and very powerful.

The engine develops some 245ps resulting in 0 to 60 acceleration of 6.3 seconds and a top speed above 150mph, yet it will still average almost 48 to the gallon and CO2 emission of 156g/km make it a very realistic proposition for business users.

For sporty driving - and the car can handle - the seven speed S tronic gearbox can be used manually via steering wheel mounted paddles and with an uprated quattro set up combined with air suspension the ride and grip is top class.

Decked out with oak wood veneers and top quality leather upholstery it is as plush as a limo inside but with the facility to carry plenty of cargo with a luggage capacity ranging from 565 to 1,680 litres and a towing ability of 2.1 tonnes.

And that is where the Avant finds its groove - a blend of luxury, performance and practicality.

It is Audi's largest estate car and pitched against the likes of the BMW 5 Series Tourers, the Mercedes E-Class estate and the Volvo V70.

The Avant is very much in a premium niche, possibly understated at a glance but opulent to the core.

Audi is making no bones about the fact it is targeting business customers with the new Avant's low tax bandings plus service plans to extend warranties which can now stretch to five years or 90,000 miles for an extra cost of £1,335.

As estates go the Avant is something else and in the diesel league it is at the cutting edge, a feature which will become even more apparent next year with the arrival of a high performance twin turbo V6 engine derived from the company's Le Mans winning cars - and that should be something worth waiting for.