I realised instantly quite how well our new Audi A6 Avant would fit into my current lifestyle on my first commute home.

I'm not sure what the 'me' of 10 years ago would think about my joy at a big automatic [1] diesel estate, but the A6 pretty much suits me down to the ground right now. A 35-mile commute and various motorway trips around the country during the week and lugging small baby paraphernalia at weekends will show off the car's strengths quite nicely, I'm thinking. That first drive also gave me time to reflect on the amount of toys fitted to our car that, due to it being a very early car from Audi's demo fleet, rather than one we specced ourselves, is rather over-specced with more than £10,000-worth of options.

But first things first. Rather than the volume 2.0-litre TDI model, it was the intriguing 3.0 TDI Multitronic that caught our eye. At £2570 more expensive but just one Benefit-in-Kind band higher than the 2.0-litre, for an executive-sized 3.0-litre automatic estate to be emitting just 136g/km and offering an official 55.4mpg shows how far the technology has come, and it's just 1.1mpg behind the 2.0-litre automatic A6. Real-world economy will be interesting, but early runs in mixed driving conditions are easily north of 40mpg, so the signs are good.