For fans of tailored cars, a visit to the Audi Forum Neckarsulm is well worth making your way to Audi’s Heilbronn headquarters. It’s on the second floor of that customer delivery center that Audi exclusive maintains its own showroom where cars built to show off the four rings’ in-house tailoring capabilities are displayed. One of those cars during our visit in October of 2022 was this RS 4 Avant (vin: WUAZZZF44NA901565) in Berry Pearl (beerepearleffekt; pearl effect UNI; Z4W; Audi exclusive).
The RS 4 Avant isn’t available in all markets. So, for our mainly North American audience, this car would be forbidden fruit even in its most common form. For us though, the truly noteworthy element of this car is the paint color. Berry Pearl is a striking dark pink bordering on purple. Consider it Audi’s Rubystar, though its pearlescent base gives it much more depth than that 90s era pink from the Porsche Cup of that 964 era.
We typically photograph spec sheets for cars such as this, so we’ve included that also (in German of course) in our photo gallery of the car below.
Like a deer in lights – that was probably the best way to describe my state of mind in 2009 when I’d been prepared to order an Audi exclusive S5 Coupé. Audi’s V8 coupe marked the four rings’ return to a two-door gran turismo, one Volkswagen Group design boss Walter De Silva to this day claims was his favorite design of all time.
Back then, I was editor of the Audi-focused blog Fourtitude.com (merged into its sister website VWvortex long ago by its current publishers), and my focus was the Audi brand specifically. Our publication was granted an Audi each year on long-term loan in order to generate year-round content and see duty at car shows. After seeing the always unique lineups at auto shows in Geneva, Paris and Frankfurt, I’d pitched Audi to consider granting me access to Audi exclusive tailoring for the car. They agreed and sent me an order guide. Now, it was time to pick that color and frankly I was at a loss. There were just so many choices.
As I weighed my options, I’d decided to stick to known Audi colors, and had two opposing concepts forming in my head. One option looked backward to something classic, and the other looked forward towards modernism and Audi’s future.
Option #1 leaned the GT nature of the then-new S5 had me thinking of the recently retired Goodwood Green. That slightly darker take on classic British Racing Green had shown up on cars like the TT 3.2 VR6, B5 RS 4 in Europe and B6 S4 here in the USA. I envisioned it with tan leather (or brown if they’d let me dip into custom leather colors) and wood or aluminum trim. Creating a rendering in photoshop, I remember it looking like a baby Bentley Continental GT, a car that had also recently come to the fore thanks to the Volkswagen Group.
Option #2 went a totally different direction. The also-recently-introduced mid-engined R8 Coupé had a very distinct light blue metallic paint that mimicked the Le Mans concept on which the R8 was based. Jet Blue (1Y1Y) looked even better in the renderings. I went further in my pursuit of a tailored spec by choosing the stock Pearl Silver Silk Nappa Leather that was also a launch options for the S5. Combined with carbon fiber, the cockpit was fresh and modern with a high-tech feel that suited the Audi well.
Looking back at it, the pricing for Audi exclusive paint in those years was incredibly reasonable. On the car’s build sheet, the Jet Blue Metallic paint is listed at $1,300 and another $1,200 Audi exclusive order fee. That’s only $2,500 for special paint in that model year.
In my year of time with that car (VIN WAURV78TX9A003802), on loan as it was from Audi of America, it served as daily driver and constant show car. Its understated nature gave it more of an “if you know you know” status than any in-your-face color would have.
A friend who worked with executives at Volkswagen Group gave it the best back-handed compliment. “It looks like something a board member would order,” she said. While I’m not sure it would have been her choice, ordering something avant-garde like a senior executive with a large company car budget and access to whatever they wanted seemed like a solid compliment to me.
A few years later the car popped up at Audi North Scottsdale on trade and I was tempted to try to pick it up given how unique it remained, though a friend at the dealer informed me it was having some issues with an aftermarket theft tracking system that had been installed so I ultimately never bothered.
Searching the VIN today shows it made its way to California where in 2019 it appears to have turned up at a Copart auction with the front clip missing, likely due to a light front end collision. Shots of the interior show the exceptionally light-colored Pearl Silver leather looking a bit dirty and worn, while the wheels are refinished in black. IT asold at that auction for just $1,350. It shows up looking repaired and looking a lot better at a used car lot in Sacramento with a salvage title. Where it is today remains unknown.
With this new Color Chart series, we’re aiming to catalogue even more paint colors from various periods. First up is this 1994 and 1995 model year mix from Audi labeled as Lifestyle colors and they’re an interesting mix of often intense colors.
In 1994 and 1995, Audi was on the ropes. Porsche was about to launch the RS2, which was very special indeed, but Audi as a brand was challenged to come up with a freshened range of cars that could rekindle the market attention that had waned since the retirement of the original “ur” quattro.
Audi exclusive was in its infancy, and special colors like these had been chosen by the brand’s design team as something special to juice sales and interest in the cars. A contact from that time who worked at the Simi Valley Design Studio even suggests studio chief J. Mays had ordered his own company car in Inca Yellow as seen in this chart.
It appears Audi has reintroduced Nimbus Grey on the updated RS e-tron GT. First introduced on the TTS concept and then later popularized on TT models, the first-generation TT in particular, it’s a great-looking mid-to-dark grey.
When you think of Las Vegas, chances are that images of bright lights come to mind- whether those lights are on the strip, or perched atop one of the city’s many slot machines. Along with those thoughts also come strong feelings, as Vegas is a fairly divisive love-it-or-hate-it kind of town. Perhaps through that lens, Audi naming this hue “Vegas Yellow” is appropriate in more ways than one.
Currently for sale at friends of the site Audi Wilmington (Delaware), this Audi exclusive Vegas Yellow S5 Coupe (VIN: WAUP4AF54PA036139) was initially ordered by a dealer employee who is a card-carrying member of Team Fun. While most would not consider Vegas Yellow, we think this S5 pulls it off quite well, especially having been paired with the Black Optic package. On the inside things are much more tame, with black leather sport seats featuring deviated stitching and carbon fiber trim.
We were big fans of Vegas Yellow when it debuted on the Audi TT S and S3, and we’re also big fans of Audi Wilmington. So call us biased, but if you’re in the market for an S5 with Tailored Driver cred, we think it’d be pretty hard to do much better than this. See the full details of this Audi exclusive Vegas Yellow S5 on Audi Wilmington’s website, here.
Audi has renamed its base e-tron GT to now be the S e-tron GT. In addition to that, it’s dropped some B-roll of the new models. And while Florett Silver is pretty standard across the Audi range right now, this footage gives us an opportunity to examine it in more detail across the lines of the S e-tron GT.
Alright, we’ll level with you. Green over tan isn’t exactly groundbreaking, and if you’ve been here for a bit you’ve certainly seen it before. But for the truly afflicted, the nuance of this Audi exclusive RS 6 Avant in Oak Green Metallic paired with Cognac extended leather an matching(!) seat belts is clearly a cut above.
Currently on offer at Audi Pacific in Torrance, California, the RS 6 (VIN: WUA1CBF22NN902419) you see here represents arguably the best of the Volkswagen Group’s portfolio- a monumentally fast wagon in a Porsche color. Equally at home in the canyons and in the pick-up line at your local elementary school, we simply have zero edits. Whoever initially spec’d this one crushed it.
Having covered just under 17,000 miles and priced at $103,995, this Audi exclusive Oak Green Metallic RS 6 Avant seems like a pretty good deal too. It’s clearly been loved, used, and it’s ready for the right home. We sincerely hope that home is with one of you.
See the full listing for this Tailored Driver, here.
With the freshening of the RS e-tron GT and introduction of the RS e-tron GT, Audi has released footage of the car in several launch colors. This car is in Audi Oak Green Pearl (oakgrünperleffekt; metallic uni; Q82; Audi), not to be confused with Oak Green Metallic colors from other brands such as Porsche.
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