Audi S8 Fast Fleet test – living with Ingolstadt's 563bhp flagship saloon

When I picture an Audi S8, I imagine it being driven by an elite hitman making a rapid getaway in a Jerry Bruckheimer film. Or perhaps it’s waiting patiently on a runway, ready to deliver a visiting angry German ambassador to Chequers. My first encounter with KY73 OTZ was in the considerably less glamorous surroundings of a curry house car park on the old Great North Road. Yet despite this, or perhaps because of it, it still made quite the first impression.

With its Floret Silver metallic paint shining in the autumn sunlight and complemented by large 21-inch ‘Evo style’ wheels with red brake calipers behind, it looked sophisticated, considered and simply very cool indeed. Contrasting the silver is the imposing front grille, revised in the recent facelift for the A8 and made less glitzy here by the S8’s black exterior styling pack. Also grabbing your attention is the car’s size: it looks every bit of its 5190mm length and 1945mm width (2130mm including the door mirrors) and straight away it was obvious to me that I’ll be putting its rear-wheel steering to the test over the next six months.

Unlock the S8 and it rises up on its suspension to aid ingress, lowering again once you’re aboard. Accompanied by a subtle steam-like hydraulic noise, it’s a novelty that I suspect will take some time to wear off, my stupid mind racing immediately to the lowriders you see bouncing around Compton in Snoop Dogg videos. It can be switched off, of course, but I won’t be doing that.

Things get even more impressive inside. You sit in wonderful Merlot Red stitched leather seats, with heating and cooling fans, naturally, and while the dashboard’s basic layout is familiar from other recent VW Group models, it’s been seriously pimped-up in finish and build. It oozes quality, and at night its futuristic lighting makes you feel like you’re on the bridge of the USS Enterprise.

The £10,750 upgrade to ‘Vorsprung’ trim adds matrix LED headlights, a panoramic sunroof, four-zone air-con and other goodies. A Bang & Olufsen 3D Advanced Sound System at £5390 includes 23 speakers, among them a pair of little mushroom tweeters – sorry, ‘acoustic lenses’ – that pop up from the dash-top. There’s also a load-through hatch in the rear seats (£250), presumably for carrying skis, or maybe a sniper’s rifle if you’re a hitman in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. All this and more brings the price of our S8 up from £108,820 basic to £125,875. Gulp!

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Helping to further justify that figure is what’s under the bonnet: a twin-turbocharged 4-litre V8, delivering 563bhp and 590lb ft of torque, and capable of whisking the 2220kg S8 to 62mph in 3.8sec and on to a limited top speed of 155mph.

However, I’ve only experienced a fraction of that ability so far, as OTZ arrived with just 67 miles on the clock, so we’re still running it in. A few long journeys should soon sort that out, and they’ll certainly be comfortable ones thanks to the Predictive Active Suspension, which gives a ride that is oh-so smooth but also the right side of bouncy. It’ll be interesting to see how it copes when more (a lot more) is being asked of that V8.

I’m a little less keen to see what effect that will have on the fuel economy. Even being nursed around we’re only just into the 20s mpg-wise. Still, who cares? The S8 has already made me the coolest dad on the school run, and that’s got to be worth something, right?

This story was first featured in evo issue 317.