AUDI A8

Luxury limousine is updated – mostly inside – in the face of rejuvenated opposition

- VICKY PARROTT

Perhaps it’s a size thing – or, at the very least, a purpose thing. After all, we’re on board with gratuitously powerful sports cars of any variety, but driving a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 Audi A8 in 2021 (especially around Norway, where more cars are electric than are not) does feel like turning up to a bar mitzvah with a plate of pork chops.

Still, the competition is also rife with chunky V8s (think MercedesBenz S-Class and BMW 7 Series); and yet more pertinent is the fact that this A8 will also offer a 3.0-litre petrol V6, a 3.0-litre diesel V6 and a plug-in hybrid system with a longer electric range than before, plus the sporty S8.

This is a mild overhaul for the A8, with the significant new additions being a bigger grille, bigger front intakes, new OLED tail-lights, new infotainment software and, on rangetopping Vorsprung trim, new digital matrix LED headlights with no fewer than 1.3 million micromirrors, which don’t so much illuminate the road as deliver a forward-facing sunrise.

It’s peachy to drive in precisely the suave yet potent way that you want from an A8. Our test car was a non-UK model, using a 453bhp version of the 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 that we will get in the S8. The permanent Quattro four-wheel drive, four-wheel steering and predictive air suspension of our test car is all pertinent to the hot model, though.