Audi A8 L: We Drive The Longest Car From The Audi Stable

By Team FHM · Jun 2014 · 4 min read

Read FHM India in the digital libraryEvery issue, every shoot, on TCG Media.Read now

We drive the longest car from the Audi stable on the wrong side of the road.

There are those who get snowed down under options buying a sandwich – first you have to pick between brown, whole wheat, white, debate whether you need salami, ham, bacon, turkey or chicken, and then whether or not you want tomatoes and onions. Then one of the most important questions of your life awaits you – whether to pick mustard, honey mustard, chilli sauce or mayo. If you’re one of those who go back and forth between the Mayo and the honey mustard and can’t decide between the bacon and the ham while the restless line behind you grows, the A8L will keep you up at nights for weeks together. Yes, someone at Audi did shoot themselves after they read the analogy.

Read FHM India in the digital libraryEvery issue, every shoot, on TCG Media.

The A8L is for the people who know exactly what they want in painful excruciating, specific detail. It is available in 111 colours, there are 23 interior options, 27 customisable parts, 12 wooden inlay options and three engine options. Audi calls it infinite. But considering we are as hard working souls as we are, we figured out that this basically means there are 91,908 variations on offer (if you don’t count the 27 customisable parts). Add to this the fact that its matrix LED headlights deliver close to a billion illumination configurations mean this is a nightmare for the man who doesn’t know what he wants.

So when Nicolas Cage, at the launch, said he wanted the car in Mamba Black metallic paint, Nutmeg Brown Valcona leather and dark brown Walnut Wood he might not have realised but it might have been his bravest decision yet. And this is a man who does his own stunts.

We drove the car for close to 120 kms in Dubai and even though the driver’s seat is something that will be rarely acknowledged on the ones that sell in India, it is a truly spectacular place to be in. The redone headlights are now composed of 25 LEDs which work in conjunction with the on-board computer and camera and can be individually controlled. For instance, the car automatically detects another car coming from the opposite direction and dims the LED which might blind the other driver, while at the same time continuing to light up the road for you.

The 50 minutes drive from downtown Dubai to the desert resort of Bab al Shams was uneventful – even though we did manage to have a lot of fun with the car despite the fact that we were driving a car with a steering on the wrong side, on the wrong side of the road. Despite being 5.14 metres long and 1.95 metres wide, the A8L is terribly nimble on its feet.

The 1.29 crore A8 is hell bent on taking the fight to the BMW 7 Series that costs ₹1.03 crore and the king of the hill - the Mercedes Benz S Class which carries a price tag of ₹1.36 crore. At most levels the A8 isn’t an entirely new car but a facelift one with major design changes. It’s slightly heavier than the version it replaces but Audi has decided to plonk a 4.2 litre diesel that generates 385 hp into the bay apart from the standard 4 litre petrol (churning out 435 hp) and 3 litre diesel which churns out 250 hp. All engines have been re-tuned to generate 35 bhp more than the previous 3 litre diesel and 15 bhp more for the 4 litre petrol. All options have Quattro, Audi Drive Select option and adaptive air suspension as standard.

The interiors apart from the customisable options are a properly luxurious place to be in. There are a wide range of options for the front seats including ventilation and a five programme massage system. But for the rear seat where most of the action will happen in the A8 you can choose from an executive package, upgrade your Bose music system to a Bang & Olufsen, a park assist, panoramic sunroof and even more excitingly – a head-up display.

The A8L is more than equipped to take the fight to the S-Class, the only shame is it’s too good a car to sit in the backseat of. It wins that round over the S-Class, it makes you want to take over the steering. Let’s hope their demographic feels the same.