RE: Audi S8 (D2): PH Heroes

[FK]

Evening all,

What a fantastic car. Still looks great despite approaching 20. Doesn't seem to have aged at all. A8s have long been cool in my view. One of my parent's friends had an S8 (the 360bhp V8 version), and it was very rapid, completely independent of the weather. Superb car!

[DP33]

About 15 years ago on a stag weekend in Eastern Europe we arranged a bit of extra curricular, off piste range work with some fairly heavy calibre kit. We had to meet a couple of local chaps who were "packing the heat" in the middle of nowhere. What did they smoke up in? Yeah you couldn't have scripted it. Highlight of the whole weekend.

[s m]

Jex said:

Hang on to the coat tails of a Ferrari 355? Only if Xenia Onnatop was driving the Ferrari.

Interesting, as always on here, the perceptions about performance. Looks to be the same performance as an E46 330i manual......or much the same to 60 and 100mph as the Escort Cosworth reviewed on here which people were viewing as pretty slow nowadays

The box no doubt blunts the response but it looks like a good cruiser

[ninepoint2]

fastgerman said:

The facelift cars have 5v per cylinder and some extra grunt (360 bhp is correct) taking 0-60 down to 5.6 seconds.

Sorry, but it was never anywhere near that, 6.7 was the Audi officail claim but I do recall someone getting nearer 6.2, but whatever is true it's really irrelevant when it gets down to 10ths of seconds I guess.They are much more at home munching up miles on the Motorway/Autostrada/Autobahn or in fact any long journey, must be the most comfortable seats ever fitted to a car these Recaros

[rollo]

Further to my earlier post, I'm completely in love with my S8. It's a truly lovely thing to potter about in. One of the joys of motoring is driving slowly in a quick car. In that respect the S8 is the perfect stealth saloon, the proverbial iron fist in a velvet glove. Subtle in a way that contemporary BMW's, Audis and Mercs are definitely not, with their aggressive bling-tastic looks and too many tailpipes. What is it with 4 tailpipes.....? Anyhow, in the two years since I acquired the Audi, I've spent money on new discs and refurbishing the glorious 6-spoke Avus alloys. Aside from servicing and MOT's, I also changed the cambelt (peace of mind) and replaced the gearbox oil for the same reason. Everything works on it, it's never going to rot, and if you do prod the loud pedal hard, it certainly has "a bit of shove". Who cares about 0-60 anyway? Stick it in D and wallow in its underlying sense of potential. If I want to go fast, I have my race car. On that particular point, a transit van, covered trailer and Sports 2000 race car, plus the S8, amounts to @ £35k. You can't buy anything as a road car that matches up to the combined talents of those, as far as I'm concerned. At some point, I'll give up the race car and associated stuff. I'll probably keep the S8 forever.......

[Ive]

A work colleague of mine had a manual S8 and let me have a go with it.
For a barge it handled pretty well and felt surprisingly light footed.
Due to the manual gearbox, throttle response was excellent.

[FK]

Ive said:

A work colleague of mine had a manual S8 and let me have a go with it.
For a barge it handled pretty well and felt surprisingly light footed.
Due to the manual gearbox, throttle response was excellent.

There was a manual S8? Why did no one tell me? I would have been straight down the local dealer offering to exchange non essential family members for one of them!

[Ive]

yup, you could order your S8 with a auto box or a 6-speed manual gearbox in Europe.
https://youtu.be/c9KOoC1f-88
https://youtu.be/EO0akCZvi3s

https://germancarsforsaleblog.com/wp-content/uploa...


https://germancarsforsaleblog.com/wp-content/uploa...

Edited by Ive on Monday 24th December 16:48

[Don Roque]

There were even manual A8's on the LHD market. A couple of RHD conversions were also done in the UK but were apparently a tricky job as the electrics needed to be modified to fool the ECU into not needing feedback from the gearbox sensors... or something.

[ninepoint2]

FK said:

There was a manual S8? Why did no one tell me? I would have been straight down the local dealer offering to exchange non essential family members for one of them!

Not in the UK, the poster above (Ive) is based in Germany, I only know of two conversions in the UK, one is still work in progress.

[obscene]

I bought a '94 for £800 and sadly the spark plug cylinder fell apart (couldn't be bothered trying to tap it) which killed it. Seems like a one in a million chance of something like that happening again but for the 2/3 months I had it, I couldn't believe how well put together it was. The road noise was non existent to the point you could have a conversation whispering while on the motorway. Would love another!

[carinaman]

As another PHer has started a thread about AWD Vs RWD trade offs I thought I would post this. Seems the Aluminium A8 was developed to offset the additional weight of the Quattro running gear. I am not sure those heels would have be de rigueur in these more H&S and litigation aware times.

[deltashad]

Audi were researching lightweight body's for many years, the a8 cracked it. The first car they are in 91 was the quattro spyder, a very good looking car like a cross between a venturi and 348. This was the start of the R8.
From what I remember they were one of the first car makers to use galvanised steel. Although a quick Google search shows the Porsche 924 of '75 wasfully galvanised, we all know this was originally meant to be sold as an audi-VW.

They've always made fast saloons, NSU RO80 was way ahead of its time and very fast.
100 and 200 turbos of c2 and c3 shape, then imo the first S8 was the V8 from 1988, based on the c3 100-200 platform discreet with slightly flared arches. These were to compete with cars like the Thema 8.32, w124 500e and e34 M5.
I'd really like a c2 200 turbo or early v8. But the S8 is awesome a total bargain. If you owned an S8 would be tempting to have a silver case in the boot.

[Don Roque]

Audi were very proud of their aluminium body on the A8. Pre-facelift A8's even bore an oval-shaped badge with the 'Audi Spaceframe' branding on it, on the front wings IIRC.

[anonymous-user]

Robert-nszl1 said:

I know this is the 'cool' one, but the subsequent version with the Lambo V10 is what I'd go for, and did test drive back in the day.

In general it shows me why these big performance saloons used to be so special. Relatively simple with enough bells and whistles. Now almost without exception the modern versions of these cars are less good looking, stuffed full of technology nobody really needs, heavier, and while often packing monster bhp don't drive anything like as well.

Agreed. The rot set in with the fashion for comedy wheels which are now generally so pointlessly-large that the bodywork has to deform around them and any semblance of elegance / understatement becomes impossible.

[Davido82]

Good article of a legendary car.