BULL IN BANGLES

Lamborghini's worst nightmare wears four rings, it may not have the pretensions of its Italian sibling, but the RS Q8 manages to be even more brutal with surgical precision

- Dipayan Dutta

'Im beginning to feel like the engineers at Audi’s RS division have been feeling a little left out of this whole process of making Audi a brand that aligns with tree-huggers and polar bear lovers. While the rest of the Audi lineup gets increasingly friendly, hybridised, and dare I say—mindful-the RS boys have just been hanging around the Nürburgring car park like unsupervised teenagers with access to a CNC machine. Sure, there’s the occasional S3 update or a facelifted RS 3 that makes the rounds, but by and large, they’ve been quiet. Too quiet.

So, when their presumably cobweb-riddled hotline finally rang to inform them they needed to begin work on a quick update for the RS Q8, they overcompensated with the enthusiasm of a teenager left alone with their dad’s credit card. Keep in mind, this is, in essence, a mid-life facelift. But if you've spent even ten minutes in the outgoing version, you'll know this is no ordinary update. This is a statement.