AUDI A8
► Luxury cars don’t come much more understated than the Audi A8. Whichever generation you care to mention, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were looking at an A6, or perhaps even the smaller A4 – more so than a BMW 7-series or Mercedes-Benz S-Class, the A8 looks like its smaller siblings were scaled up in a photo-editing program. Off-putting for some, but for others this understatement is undoubtedly a virtue.
The A8 first arrived in 1994 under Audi’s internal code ‘D2’, and immediately made a splash. This replacement for the old Audi V8 was among the very first cars whose structure was built entirely from aluminium rather than steel, marketed under the term Audi Space Frame. While no flyweight, the A8 was certainly light by class standards; while a W140 S-Class touched nearly 1900kg in its most basic form, a 2.8-litre V6 A8 was little more than 1500kg.
Three generations of A8 have followed since, all using that same aluminium spaceframe technology, with new arrivals in 2002, 2009, and 2017. It’s the 2002-2009 car, the ‘D3’ that we’re concentrating on here though, as the most numerous you’ll find in our budget, and offered with a truly fascinating lineup of engines throughout its eightyear production run.
3.0-litre petrol and diesel V6s are most common – the diesel’s 33mpg average making it surprisingly frugal for a car with a five-metre footprint, and motivated briskly enough thanks to 229bhp and 332lb ft outputs. From there though things began to get gloriously silly: not necessarily with the petrol and diesel V8s de rigueur in the class at the time, but certainly with the naturally-aspirated 5.2-litre V10 of the S8, and then the 6.0-litre W12 shared with the Bentley Continental GT. If only the VW Group’s V10 and V12 TDIs could have made it a full house…
Realistically the S8 is a little over budget, but we’ve seen temptingly cheap W12s about, their 19mpg thirst and fiendish complexity perhaps steering potential buyers towards the simpler and more ubiquitous V6s and V8s. Quattro all-wheel-drive was standard in the UK, as was a six-speed automatic, with specifications split largely between SE and Sport.
Equipment levels didn’t disappoint, the A8 being the first Audi to pack technology like adaptive headlights, adaptive air suspension, navigation, and the brand’s MMI infotainment interface. At the 2007 facelift, further options included a technology package that featured adaptive cruise control capable of bringing the car to a complete halt, and a forward collision warning system.
Conveniently given they’re among the easiest to find, V6 diesels and V8 petrols are the least troublesome and the autobox is stout too. Problems primarily centre around air suspension failures and small electronic niggles with the MMI setup, and as prices have tumbled, A8s have fallen into the
