What is it?
The Audi Q8 is Ingolstadt’s answer to the BMW X6 SUV-cum-coupé – the BMW having turned 10 years old this year. Yup: like it or loathe it, the original German ‘sports activity coupé’ is still here. Back in 2008, there was much doubt in car hackery circles about how many buyers would be ready to pay a premium for a slightly less practical X5, made only very debatably better-looking and more interesting to drive – if at all. The answer, we predicted, couldn’t possibly be very many; amusingly enough, it turned out to be quite a lot.
And so, as BMW homes in on half a million global X6 sales in the car’s first decade, what chance of similar success should we give the new Audi Q8? The Audi has marginally more distinguishing features than the X6 had compared with the conventional SUV on which it was based. And yet, after our first taste of it, I can’t say that it strikes me as much more or less than a Q7 made a bit better-looking, a bit less practical and a bit more interesting to drive. Less the bold new-groove Audi passenger car flagship model for 21st century tastes, then, and rather more another ‘Russian doll’ Q-car for the pile, dare I suggest.
The Q8 is the sixth Volkswagen Group luxury SUV in three years built on the MLB-Evo platform. Like the Audi Q7, Porsche Cayenne and VW Touareg, it’ll be built in Bratislava, Slovakia, and it shares the same wheelbase and overall cabin width as the Q7. Outwardly, the car bears more than a passing resemblance to the Lamborghini Urus, and not by chance. Audi’s Q8 project actually started before Lamborghini committed to making the Urus but, because Lamborghini wasn’t held up by the need to negotiate space on that busy Bratislava production line, Sant’Agata managed to beat Ingolstadt into production with its rakish SUV.
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typos1
Gross.
Gross.
abkq
Whatever has happed to Audi's
Whatever has happed to Audi's design flair?This car looks so wrong in so many places.
The grille is huge and ugly, the division bars especially so.
The rear uses multiple horizontal layers to disguise its height. The result is a visual mess.
The double framed wheelarch is an unnecessary gesture ...
Yesterday it was the underwhelming A1, today this Q8 monstrosity. It seems good taste has left Audi.
Daniel Joseph
What abkq said...
...saved me the effort of doing so!
macaroni
abkq wrote:
What design flair?
abkq
macaroni wrote:
1997 TT, 1997 A6, 1999 A2, plus almost all Audi models of the 80s and 90s ...
I am a great admirer of Audi design of that era, and am now witnessing its sad decline.
Aussierob
Sorry
Not to join in the inevitable mockery of Audi design, but...
I quite like the Q8. Significantly better looking than the Porsche and VW variants of this model, it’s restrained yet progressive and the detailing, especially of the rear end, extremely neat.
5 years old, about 70% depreciated, I’d buy one.
Robbo
scrap
Good decision to launch it in
Good decision to launch it in Chile. On empty roads spearing through a desert, you could make a case for this car.
At least it looks a lot better than the X6 or GLE. I like frameless doors.
But it’s not a coupe and it remains, fundamentally, a very flawed and wasteful vehicle.
xxxx
Tough life
Not the best looking so why pump out pictures with such a horrid orange colour which does it no favours and lets face it it needs all the help it can get
Cheltenhamshire
Obnoxious factor?
Jimbbobw1977
Why do Audi insist on putting
Why do Audi insist on putting hard plastic cases on the back of the seats for rear seat passengers to look at and smash knees into? Is it cheaper than putting leather on the back?
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