The Most Expensive Audi Ever Made
The most expensive Audi ever sold is a 1988 Sport quattro S1 at €2,016,600 — Artcurial, Paris, 5 February 2021 — a rally car whose whole competition career was three exhibition laps. The highest price Audi ever printed in America is $253,290, the top of the 2023 R8’s band, and the R8 is gone. The dearest Audi on sale today is the RS e-tron GT Performance at $171,895. The Audi to book is the RS3 in our garage, which shares the record car’s cylinder count.
| Audi | Figure | What kind of number that is |
|---|---|---|
| Sport quattro S1, 1988 — chassis 905 016 | €2,016,600 | Hammer plus premium, Artcurial Paris, 5 February 2021. $2,424,911 that day. |
| Sport quattro S1, 1985 — ex-works | £1,805,000 | RM Sotheby’s London, 5 November 2022. Mikkola’s 1985 RAC Rally car. |
| Sport quattro, 1984 — road car | $643,000 | RM Sotheby’s Monterey, 16 August 2025. One of 224 built for the rulebook. |
| R8 V10 GT RWD, 2023 | $253,290 | Sticker. Top of the final R8 band; the highest US list price Audi has printed. |
| RS e-tron GT Performance, 2026 | $171,895 | Sticker. The dearest thing in an Audi showroom this year. |
| RS3 | $171/day | What the dearest Audi in our garage costs. |
One question that is really three
Ask for the most expensive Audi and you get an auction result, a discontinued list price and this year’s showroom sticker, sorted into one column as though they were the same kind of number. They are not, and the auction result belongs to a car that never raced.
An auction result has a house, a date and a buyer’s premium attached, and it is the only one of the three that records a transaction. A list price is what the factory asked, in a model year, in a country. A showroom sticker changes every year and the options list moves it a long way. And underneath all three sits a fourth number this marque is unusually good at producing: a price in a currency that no longer exists.
So the columns stay apart here, every figure says which kind it is, and the Audis a reader can actually be handed the keys to sit in our own Audi fleet rather than at the end of the article. None is in the ranking. Nothing in the ranking is rentable anywhere on earth.
The record is a rally car that never raced
On 5 February 2021, at its Parisienne sale in the Rétromobile week, Artcurial sold a 1988 Sport quattro S1, chassis 85 ZGA 905 016, for €2,016,600 including premium — $2,424,911 at the rate of the day, roughly double the low estimate, and the most anybody has paid at auction for a rally car of any marque.
The detail that makes it a good row rather than a big number: the car never competed. Audi Sport sold it directly to a French collector in March 1989 with a thousand kilometres on it, and its entire career was the first Race of Champions at Montlhéry in 1988, the event Michèle Mouton founded. Three exhibition laps, one owner from new, and two million euros. Provenance and results are different properties, and this market pays for both.
One thing to know before you quote it. Hagerty’s market desk printed the same sale at €1,968,000, and that figure has been copied widely. Artcurial’s own results page says €2,016,600, and the house that took the money outranks anyone summarising it. The second-dearest Audi is a real works car by contrast: Hannu Mikkola’s 1985 Sport quattro S1 from the RAC Rally, which made £1,805,000 with RM Sotheby’s in London on 5 November 2022. Fifteen of the twenty S1 E2s built are thought to survive, four of them in private hands.
The bigger sticker is three years in the past
Restrict the showroom column to cars on sale today and you miss the actual record, which is not close. The 2023 R8 — the last model year of the last mid-engined car the company built — carried a US band of $161,395 to $253,290, per Car and Driver, and the top of it is the GT: rear-wheel drive only, 602 horsepower, 333 built worldwide, a numbered plaque on the dash. That is the highest number Audi has ever put on a car an American could walk in and order, about forty-seven per cent above this year’s ceiling, and the gap is not inflation. It is a naturally aspirated V10 that left the range and did not come back.
The R8’s V10 lives on in our Huracán Evo, and the R8 is still the most interesting Audi ever priced, and the R8’s own ranking takes the limited editions one at a time.
Two rules, because they are where these lists break
No silent conversion. The road-going Sport quattro cost DM 203,850 in Germany in 1984 — a real published price in a currency retired in 2002. Every dollar figure ever printed beside it is somebody’s silent choice of exchange rate and inflation series, and almost nobody says which. Keep the Mark figure and the year, and let the relationship do the work: in its own market it was priced like the German supercars of the day.
Hammer, hammer-plus-premium and the house’s headline are three numbers. The Artcurial car appears at €1,968,000 and at €2,016,600 depending on which one a writer copied. Quote the house.
The most expensive Audi you can order new
This is the question most people are actually asking, and the answer is not a V8 or a large SUV. It is the electric four-door: the RS e-tron GT Performance, at the $171,895 top of Car and Driver’s band for the 2026 e-tron GT, which is the source for every sticker on this page so the rows compare like with like. The RS Q8 sits at $139,695 and the S8 at $131,395.
Note what that does to a second question people type separately. The most expensive Audi model is the e-tron GT; the most expensive Audi SUV is the RS Q8, about thirty-two thousand dollars below it. Those two searches should return different cars, and on most lists they return the same one.
The most expensive Audi in Los Angeles
The dearest Audi in our garage is the green RS3, a step above the A5 convertible on rate, and it is also the one that belongs on this page.
Five cylinders is a strange number and almost nobody else builds one; the firing order is uneven in a way no four, six or eight can copy, and it produces a warble rather than a note. That layout is what the Sport quattro used, it is what won Audi its rallies, and it is the one piece of the two-million-euro car that survived into something with five seats and a boot. The RS3 is its own car rather than a replica of anything. The sound coming out of it is a direct inheritance.
What it costs, and how it reaches you
The RS3 carries a $750 refundable deposit and the A5 $500, each back 5–7 business days after the car returns. The Protection plan is priced per day off the deposit band, and your own full policy works instead. The RS3 carries weekly and monthly blocks the quote picks up, and the live rate is on its own page.
Collection from our lot on Robertson Boulevard is free and delivery to the partner hotels in Beverly Hills is complimentary. Airport delivery is $150 both ways standard, where the car waits in the airport parking structure and you take the free shuttle out to it — about half an hour — or $300 both ways VIP, where it is waiting at the terminal when you walk out; one direction is half. They combine per leg. The mileage allowance is written into your rental agreement, and the rest is in the terms.
The short version, with the columns kept apart
The most expensive Audi ever sold is a 1988 Sport quattro S1 at €2,016,600 with Artcurial on 5 February 2021 — a rally car with three exhibition laps to its name, and the most ever paid for a rally car of any marque. The most expensive Audi ever listed in America is the 2023 R8, whose band ran to $253,290 in its final year. The most expensive one you can order new is the RS e-tron GT Performance at $171,895.
The Audi to book is the green RS3 in our garage, which shares the record car’s cylinder count, and the sound is the part that survived.
4 photographs from this guide are free to use under CC BY 4.0 — download them →
Cars in this guide
More on this: The cars, explained — every article on the topic, and where to book.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the most expensive Audi ever made?
Nizo Luxury rents the Audi RS 3 in Los Angeles — +1 (424) 303-6496 — at $171 a day. The most expensive Audi ever made is, by the only number that records a transaction, a 1988 Sport quattro S1, chassis 905 016, which Artcurial sold in Paris on 5 February 2021 for €2,016,600 including premium — $2,424,911 at the rate of the day, and the most ever paid at auction for a rally car of any marque. Its whole career was the 1988 Race of Champions. The highest US list price Audi ever published is $253,290, at the top of the 2023 R8's band.
What is the most expensive Audi you can buy new?
The RS e-tron GT Performance, at the $171,895 top of the 2026 e-tron GT band. It clears the RS Q8 at $139,695 and the S8 at $131,395. All three are Car and Driver's published figures for the same model year, so they compare like with like.
What is the Audi Sport quattro's price history?
DM 203,850 in Germany in 1984, for one of 224 short-wheelbase homologation cars — a real published price in a currency retired in 2002, which is why every dollar figure printed beside it is somebody's choice of exchange rate. A road-going 1984 car made $643,000 with RM Sotheby's at Monterey on 16 August 2025; the rally-specification S1 sits at €2,016,600 and £1,805,000 on the two results that lead the marque.
Is the Audi R8 the most expensive Audi?
By American list price, yes: the 2023 R8's band ran from $161,395 to $253,290, and the $253,290 GT is the highest figure Audi has ever attached to a car in a US showroom. By auction result, no — the Sport quattro S1 clears it by a factor of nine. The R8's V10 lives on in our Huracán Evo. That is the car to book for the engine.
What is the most expensive Audi in Los Angeles?
In this garage, the green RS3, at $171 a day. The Audi lines here — RS3 and A5 convertible — appear nowhere in the ranking above. The RS3 is the one for the five-cylinder sound, and the A5 convertible for a roof that comes down.