Only for car crazyssss......

Audi A8L goes the extra miles

 

 

The L in Audi’s A8L denotes limousine, a long-wheelbase version used in the homeland for transporting heads of state or titans of industry. It adds more than five inches to length, all of it in the rear cabin, making a substantial car. Barring Rolls-Royce, Bentley and Maybach sedans, the largest utilities SUVs and pickups, it’s the longest production car in the U.S. market.
The chiseled chin, tailored flanks, generous chromium and piercing LED lights project the imposing, cold demeanor of a boarding school headmaster, yet a modern, warmer cabin suggests the businesslike public persona does indeed have a human side. The A8L is modern as any Audi, and it’s only the L proportions that keep it from appearing too similar to every other Audi sedan.
Those generous dimensions are used to coddle four or five occupants at light-aircraft speeds without the noise and vibration, not for maximum space efficiency. Whether for status, aerodynamics or to conceal a large engine, the long hood is requisite, but the fairly finished, suitcase-friendly trunk space is a fourth or fifth less than most midsizers, including Audi’s own.



Dissolve into a back seat as large as the front and indulge in stretch-out room and plush temple-cradling headrests while the door gently seals itself shut with all power sunshades at your fingertips. Add a “comfort” pack with power recline and lumbar, seat memory, lit vanity mirrors overhead and a separate climate zone for each corner. Splurge for the Executive pack ($12,500) and you get individual power seats with massage, leather console, fridge, DVD entertainment with dual 10-inch screens and bits like a footrest built into the right front seatback. They say, “Go big or go home,” and this is more comfortable than most homes.
Of course the front seats are just as good, the available massage multiple-choice for style and intensity with heating and ventilation accompaniment. My only nitpick is the seat cushion extension for longer legs — where some others lengthen the entire seat Audi extends just the center section which is fine for thigh support but leaves side bolsters to pinch mid-thigh when the road’s not so straight.
An eight-inch LCD screen, sporting graphics developed with NVIDIA, cantilevers out from the center dash, run through the multimedia interface, voice or a trackpad for inputting letters or numbers, selecting radio presets and so on. There’s a wealth of controllability at hand, much of it duplicated on the between-gauge screen or individual controls: Rotate a climate-control wheel to adjust seat heat and a graphical overlay fades on and off the main screen. There’s also Google Earth mapping, Wi-FI hotspot, Bluetooth, iPod integration, SD and SIM cards, HD radio, Audi connect, ambient and direct LED cabin lighting (adjustable for color and intensity by location), and some of the best steering wheel controls in the business, all standard. Speed and engine revs are analog displays, the fuel and temperature LED segments easy to lose amongst all the other data in front  of you.

Flowing open lines and genuine wood and aluminum grace the cabin, with fair storage for a high-end car. From elegantly simple analog clock to individual adjustable armrests every detail has been thought through at least twice, save for one.
An inverted putter head serves as the shift lever, better as a wrist-rest for using the trackpad and MMI controls than a gear-changing device. It is very sensitive to input, requires a pushbutton to get from D to N but not from R to N; it’s too easy to not get the gear you want and the first automatic that made me look like I didn’t know how to drive. Fortunately once you’re in Drive, shift paddles on the wheel work well.
Standard power is a 372-horsepower 4.2-liter V-8 engine paired with an eight-speed automatic transmission. Compared to most rivals the engine is down on torque (328 lb-ft) but it never feels lacking and upper-20s on the highway is better than gasoline competitors including Mercedes S and BMW 7 hybrids. Audi has announced a similarly-torquey supercharged 3-liter V-6 will be available in 2013, so this may well be the last year for the sonorous V-8. Speed freaks are catered to with a 6.3-liter, 500-hp W12 model that starts at $133,000 because many V-8 options are standard.