2020 Audi S8Graeme Fletcher / Driving BARCELONA, Spain The executive super-sedan segment has a new entrant: Audis latest S8 is on sale in Canada right now for $151,600, and in the long wheelbase variant only. In the simplest of terms, its a full-sized Bahn burner with everything from a sharper style and sorted handling to a lavish interior, and it touches everything between.The story starts under the hood with a 4.0-litre, twin-turbocharged V8 that has been tweaked to give it a serious turn of speed. As used in the standard A8, this engine produces 460 horsepower and 487 lb.-ft. of torque. Cranking the turbos boost pressure to an astounding 26 PSI bumps the output to 563 horsepower and 590 lb.-ft. of torque at 2,000 rpm. To state the obvious, the extra 103 horsepower and pound-feet torque makes an enormous difference to the turn of speed. Almost enough to justify the ceramic brake option, with its 10-piston front calipers, a wise buy. Sadly, at $10,500, thats just not the case.The engine works with an eight-speed automatic transmission and Audis Quattro all-wheel-drive system. The transmission is a slick shifter that, depending on the drive mode selected, either slips up and down the cogs with a near-invisible shift quality, or it bumps up and down the gears with the speed needed to maintain momentum under hard acceleration. The all-wheel-drive system, under normal driving conditions, sends 40 per cent of the drive to the front wheels and 60 to the rear. However, it can send up to 70 per cent to the front wheels and up to 85 to the rear, should the need arise. The ebb and flow of power is seamless, and its superb at preventing the power from melting the rubber when the gas pedal is mashed. The combination makes for one seriously fast car the run from rest to 100 km/h comes in at 3.9 seconds. Thats very good, but its the mid-range where the S8 really catches fire the 80 to 120 km/h passing move clocks in at 2.6 seconds and the pace doesnt let up until the driver decides it isnt worth having a roadside chat with the local constabulary. Thats just one side of the story, though: The addition of cylinder deactivation and a 48-volt mild hybrid system improves fuel economy when the gas pedal isnt buried. A test average of 11.1 L/100 kilometres was much better than expected, given the S8 wasnt exactly driven with an eye to conservation.Another highlight is the ride quality delivered by the active air suspension. Its about as good as it gets, in terms of delivering two very different cars in a single package. The key is the predictive nature of the suspension; at speeds up to 70 km/h, the system uses the forward-facing camera to look at the road. When it detects a speed bump or the like, it changes the load-leveling air suspension and damping ahead of time to ready the car for the impending jolt. The result is an impeccable ride that sets a new standard for comfort sharp jolts are tamed to the point where the S8 wafts over the road and its imperfections. Better yet, the new Comfort+ drive mode uses the active anti-roll bars that control body roll to lean the car into the corner by as much as three-degrees an electric motor is used to control the left and right halves of the front and rear anti-roll bars to create the lean. The result is much less lateral force on the riders.As with the engine, that only tells one side of the story. The S8 also comes with dynamic all-wheel-steering and a sport differential with real-time torque vectoring. At speeds up to 60 km/h, the rear wheels turn as much as five degrees in the opposite direction to the front wheels in a parking lot, this reduces the turning circle by 1.1 meters. At speed, the dynamic steering and torque vectoring combine to point the long-wheelbase sedan into a corner with the precision expected out of an RS 6. On the twisty roads outside Barcelona, the S8 bobbed, weaved, and carved its way through decreasing-radius corners and hairpins without deviating from the desired line. Factor in the all-wheel-drive system and optional P265/35R21 tires, and the S8 behaves like a full-on sports car albeit one with a lavishly attired cabin. On that note, the S8s interior more than lives up to the high standards set by the rest of the car. From the buttery leather and high-tech accents, to the thin pinstripe-like ambient lighting, the sense of luxury and space is there regardless of where one sits the L model stretches the wheelbase by 130 millimetres, which brings limo-like rear-seat legroom and superb comfort. Sitting back there, the driver seems to be a time zone ahead.As has become the Audi norm, instrumentation is handled by the companys Virtual Cockpit setup it allows everything, from conventional instrumentation to the map, to be viewed. The centre stack is then dominated by two touchscreens; the upper unit looks after all of the infotainment, phone, vehicle settings, and navigation functions, while the lower screen is for the
Origin: First Drive: 2020 Audi S8