Convincing wealthy customers to take a given car instead of others is extremely hard because it can’t be only an excellent car: it needs to come with excellent surroundings. Besides lots of customizing options or great after-market services, it’s very important that the automaker works with finesse. Luxury cars are hardly advertised and aren’t ever expected to have massive sales, for instance, because offering an exclusive image is more important. They receive extra attention to quality issues in order to avoid being publicly recalled months later, which would leave a terrible stain on their reputation.
And even when it comes to being updated, it’s preferable to concentrate the changes into the half-life facelift than applying a few of them each year because it boosts the quality feeling; alternating between partial and complete updates each four or five years makes clients see a renewed model just when they’re about to change their current ones, which stimulates them to keep buying from the same company, rather than seeing their cars get “slightly outdated” each year. Dealing with so many rules is certainly very hard, but unless an automaker comes up with a revolutionary model, following them is the only way to succeed in this market.
Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz’s vehicles may enjoy an incredibly positive image specially among people who aren’t so interested in the car world, but the truth is most of their vehicles are just keeping up with the very same standards they’ve defined, over the past decades. In other words, if a new A6 or E-Class stopped being improved and decided to aim at cheap prices this market would still be ruled by a few rivals, only different ones – which is exactly Cadillac, Jaguar, Lexus, Maserati and many others’ biggest dream. The other “group” is composed of the cars whose responsibility is to set those standards.
After all, flagship cars not only inspire their smaller brothers as also employ their oversized profit margins at taking to the streets the automakers’ technological innovations –if their acceptance is good enough, they start to “descend” on the lineup in order to have more units sold. Audi’s latest response at this category is smaller than Mercedes-Benz’s, but the facelifted A8’s set of updates is still able to seduce who’s been looking at the all-new S-Class. No dimensions were altered, and so wasn’t the overall styling, in fact. The first conclusion is that A8 received a more conservative look, dropping the rounded-corners elements in favor of a more solid set, leaving it less sporty and more imponent.
However, some of these elements are what concentrate this facelift’s most impressive additions. The headlights bring 18 LEDs each as standard, but it’ll have the options of xenon and Matrix LED units: the latter set raises that number to 25, which can be individually dimmed or totally switched off in order to avoid blinding oncoming drivers. Not to mention they are now connected to the navigation system, for optimizing the light distribution in response to the current driving situation. The back lights didn’t receive so much technology, but it’s interesting to notice the contrast on what Audi did with the design.
That chrome line is a tradition kept by classic sedans for decades, and at A8 was visually connected to one of the car world’s most recent trends: the LED position lights were shaped as a visual extension of that metal bar, outside the trunk lid. S8 expresses its sportiness once again with subtlety, starting at the exclusive front bumper. The car combines A8’s new grille with bigger and individual auxiliary air intakes, ending on a small spoiler which is followed by sides to bring slightly better aerodynamics. The wheels are sportier (now can reach 21” in every version), and the rear bumper matches the more aggressive design with Audi S and RS’s typical four exhaust tips.
As anyone must’ve expected, these cars’ interior is fascinating. These are some of the few Audis which drop the black color’s exclusivity in the cabin, which makes the room look even bigger. There are lots of coating options regarding color, texture and material, which were increased this time with items like Unikat leather and carbon twill copper inlays – as usual, Audi will also attend individual requests. A8L boosts such comfort with the extra 13 cm at the wheelbase, which enables the back-seaters to stretch their legs using the exclusive footrests placed on the back of the front seats.
The technology section includes MMI Touch to help operating the infotainment system, full Internet connection for the passengers and through navigation information for the driver, park assist system with 360° cameras, Bang & Olufsen audio system, DVD player and all the electronic safety systems of every luxury car of nowadays. A8’s lightweight construction (the lighter version weighs 1,830 kg) is matched by its powertrain options: A8 offers TFSI 3.0L (310 hp) and 4.0L (435 hp) and TDI 3.0L (258 hp) and 4.2L (385 hp and 627 lb-ft), while A8L brings the W12 6.3L (500 hp) and S8 uses its own TFSI 4.0L (520 hp). There will be quattro traction and cylinder deactivation systems, with expected prices to start on € 74,500.
Lançamento no Brasil (06/10/2014)
Com a apresentação oficial esperada para o Salão do Automóvel, o topo-de-linha da Audi exibe seu facelift mais recente somente na versão de entre-eixos longo. O foco no luxo aparece em itens como bancos traseiros reclináveis e com massageador, farois Matrix com LEDs, suspensão a ar e teto solar panorâmico, entre muitos outros. Quanto à habitabilidade, o aumento de 13 cm foi repassado por completo ao entre-eixos (agora com 3,12 m), para mimar os passageiros de trás. A novidade chega ao país em duas versões: o 3.0 V6 TFSI gera 310 cv, acelera de 0 a 100 km/h em 5,9 segundos e custa R$ 457.300. Já o 6.3 W12 FSI alcança 500 cv, 4,6 segundos e R$ 749.900. Ambos usam tração integral quattro e câmbio Tiptronic de oito marchas.