I
have to admit losing track of how many times my hapless copilot uttered
this – and countless other unpublishable phrases – from the passenger
seat during our drive. But if I’m being honest, it doesn’t hold a candle
to the endless string of explicatives running through my own mind.
The
reason? I’m piloting a 2011 Audi A8 through a particularly tortuous
stretch of California tarmac running between the Monterey Valley and the
Pacific Coast, and for the better part of 20 miles, the driver of the
tuned BMW 335i in the lead hasn’t seen anything other than the A8’s
massive slatted grille in his rearview mirror. Just as impressive – if
not more so – is the pair of worked-over E36 M3s that are having a hard
time keeping up. And these guys are locals. They’ve been running this
road for over a decade, only to have me show and spoil their ragtag
rally in Audi’s latest luxo-bruiser.
I’d like to think that my
hairpin heroics and high-speed capers are a testament to my own skills,
but I’m not that deluded. I’ve been equipped with the standard auto
journo-issued hamfists, and to think otherwise is to fall prey to
motoring delusion and insult the work of Ingolstadt’s magicians. Audi’s
new A8 is just that good, and the steer is just the half of it.
If
you’re not enamored by the looks of this latest flagship, you’re not
alone. Audi has gotten back to its Germanic roots of offering one
sausage in three sizes, so less obsessive types may have a hard time
telling an A4 from an A8 from 50 yards out. Me? I’ve always been partial
to the D3 chassis (2002-2009), which blended stately elegance with an
understated air of superiority. It never looked menacing, but it
certainly came across as imposing. Not so with the D4.
Viewed
head-on, the aforementioned grille needs a survey crew to estimate its
wingspan, while the angular bank of LEDs make the A8 look like Droopy
Dog with electroluminescent eyeliner. In profile, Audi’s designers
simply embiggened the A4’s roofline by 30 percent in Photoshop, did the
same to the rear and called it a day. We can’t blame them, because the
sheer size of this latest A8 – a staggering 202.2 inches stem-to-stern
with a wheelbase of 117.8 inches – is enough to separate it from the
rest of the luxo-pleebs.
But
if the exterior is too pedestrian for your tastes, once situated in the
22-way adjustable sports seat, any and all reservations are laid firmly
to rest. This is how you do a luxury interior, and considering the four
rings embedded on the chunky steering wheel, we’ve come to expect
nothing less.
The driver’s gauge cluster is standard fare,
particularly when compared to the “Virtual Instruments” on the Jaguar
XJ, but what it lacks in gee-whiz, it makes up for in clarity and
functionality. Nestled between the tach and speedo is Audi’s seven-inch
central information display, a screen that keeps everything from
navigation instructions to infotainment information directly in front of
the driver. The optional Night Vision Assistant with Thermal-Imaging
Infrared Camera mounted in the front bumper can keep track of
pedestrians and animals crossing the A8’s path, alerting the driver with
a quick tone and visual warning. Trick, but nothing we haven’t seen in
the latest Mercedes-Benz S-Class.
But
what truly impresses – and where this Audi stands apart – is with the
first application of its MMI Touch interface. Situated on the left side
of the center console, and perfectly placed to allow the driver to rest
his or her forearm on the yacht-inspired shifter, the rectangular
touchpad allows you to simply write letters with your fingertip and
effortlessly scroll through menus. Gone are the days of endlessly
twisting the MMI knob to input an address, find a phone contact, dial up
an XM station or navigate a map on the flip-up, central-mounted
display. The MMI Touch is hands-down the A8’s killer app, and Audi’s
competitors better hope that the patent application has more holes than
the Steelers’ defense.
But the crew from Ingolstadt hasn’t stopped there. In addition to the
de riguer
adaptive cruise control, blind spot detection and Audi Lane Assist
(wander out of your lane and the steering wheel gently vibrates), Audi
will begin offering an optional factory-installed WLAN hotspot that can
not only connect to any number of WiFi devices, it can plumb a
fully-integrated Google Earth experience into the MMI system. While it
wasn’t equipped on our $80k-and-change tester (it’s not coming to the
U.S. for another few months), we had the chance to sample the system at a
media event and came away impressed with the execution, but not the
graphics. It’s pretty, but with the topographical and satellite imagery
in use by BMW and other manufacturers, it doesn’t look as visually
polished as even the most standard graphical sat-navs.
However, polished doesn’t even begin to describe the available Bang & Olufsen Advanced
sound
system. Nineteen speakers, 19 channels and 1,400 watts of
B&O-patented aural majesty are at one’s disposal. Throughout my week
with the car, the system ably provides more than a few “driveway
moments” where I sat parked, blasting the Kleptones’ latest while
reveling in dynamic highs and forceful bass. And my neighbors were no
worse for the wear – with the doors shut and the windows sealed, not an
ounce of perfectly matched mid-80s mashups oozes outside the cabin.
There’s
certainly more than enough to impress inside the A8, but Audi is
billing the standard wheelbase sedan as its driver’s car, leaving the
“prestige, sportiness and comfort” to the elongated and plush-packed
A8L. So how’s it go?
As
if I didn’t already give up enough in the opener, it’s magnificent. The
combination of the lightweight aluminum space-frame chassis and the 372
horsepower, 4.2-liter direct injection V8 means the A8 is on par with
its peers, but the addition of Audi’s rear-biased Quattro
all-wheel-drive puts it into new territory. While the engine’s output is
far from world-beating, the 328 pound-feet of torque available from
3,500 rpm onwards is more than enough to effortlessly merge with freeway
traffic and blow into triple digits without thinking twice. But what
impressed more than anything is the utter chuckability of what is – by
all outward appearances – a ponderous, massive slab of aluminum and
steel.
Forget about the official 0-60 mph time of 5.7 seconds. It
simply isn’t a factor. Instead, Audi’s chassis and powertrain boffins
have focused on making this big boy dance. And it does. You wouldn’t
think that something this large and this lux could be this quick on its
feet, responding to steering inputs with immediacy and selecting the
perfect of its eight ratios to put the power down, but it does. And it
does it with clinical precision that doesn’t leave the driver out of the
mix – a neat trick that’s often lacking in the rarified air of the
sports executive set.
With
the Audi Drive Select set to Dynamic, a Cray’s worth of computing power
seamlessly tweaks the adaptive air suspension and S4-derived Sport
Differential to nearly eliminate any trace of understeer and allow
mid-corner lifts to forcibly tuck that massive schnoz into bends. My
driving companions are left shaking their heads and I’m left with an
unshakable grin. These kind of antics shouldn’t be possible, but the A8
manages to hack physics thanks to a smorgasbord of trick electronics, a
set of unflappable, fade-free stoppers and 20-inch wheels wrapped in
sticky summer rubber. And it’s not just what’s added on – excellence is
baked-in. Thanks to its stiff aluminum chassis clothed in matching
bodywork, this Audi simply has less mass to move around than its
competitors. The A8 checks in at 4,409 pounds, while the Mercedes-Benz
S550 weighs 4,455 pounds and the BMW 750i checks in at a hefty
4,641-pound starting weight. That may not sound like a massive
difference, but consider, too, that the A8 manages to be lighter while
toting around all-wheel drive.
If
you care about such things, Audi estimates fuel economy at 21 city and
27 highway, and I managed to average out around 19 mpg during a nine-day
stretch – easily within spitting distance of both Benz’s and Lexus’
flagship… hybrids.
When the time came to motor back up Highway
One for a very late dinner, I set the Select system to Individual
(suspension in Comfort, the rest in Dynamic) and amped up the front seat
massagers for both me and my companion. “You’re $%#^@#& kidding me,
right?” No. No I’m not, my vocabulary-challenged friend. And neither is
Audi. For lack of a better phrase, they’ve put old luxury on notice and
infused some very welcome “sport” into its flagship.
[Source: autoblog]
