What an interesting time we live in.
Audi, as with most older German marques, has a long and colourful history in the automotive sphere. With rally cars, touring cars, Le Mans racers and a bevy of sports cars, the Audi rings have featured on some of the most highly-regarded automotive ‘toys’ through history, with the present-day Audi R8 V10 sitting pretty as the most powerful car in its stable.
But very soon, that title will be taken away from it. By an SUV.
Perhaps this writer spends too much time thinking about days gone by, because it’s 2018 and we ought to be less surprised by supercar-like stats and numbers adorning high-riding family wagons the size of holiday homes. But the RS Q8, due in 2019, will be just that, and will briefly serve as the posterchild for such things under the VW Group too.
The RS Q8 will take the recently-launched and already-stupendous Audi Q8 flagship SUV and dial everything up to eleven. While the ‘standard’ Q8 is available presently with only a 3.0-litre V6 TFSI mill at present, the RS Q8 will instead employ a 4.0-litre biturbo V8 accompanied by an electric motor, a setup presently used underneath the Porsche Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid.
As such, an output of about 500kW and 850Nm is expected, with power going to all-four wheels via a sharpened and revised Quattro all-wheel drive system. Further, the RS Q8 will gain things like an agility-focused variety of the air-suspension that’s standard across the flagship SUVs range, as well as 48V active anti-roll bars (something that standard Q8’s missed on the grounds that the car already has a lower centre of gravity than its rivals and didn’t necessitate its inclusion).
While the RS Q8 will be able to boast a 50kW power advantage over the R8 V10 Plus, its considerable weight will mean the supercar will make minced meat of it when needed. That said, Autocar suggests a 0-100km/h time of about 4-seconds still puts it in good stead among its peers, with cars like the Range Rover Sport V8 needing 4.3-seconds to complete the sprint, while the Mercedes GLE63 and BMW X6 M need 4.2-seconds each.
The RS Q8 will also be treated to a number of other tweaks to ensure that it can pride itself on its agility. The performance SUV will get things like a proper centre differential, as well as four-wheel steering as standard (it’s an option on the regular Q8).
On arrival, the 500kW on offer will mean that the RS Q8 will sit pretty as the most powerful SUV in the Volkswagen Group stable, being able to eclipse the 477kW Lamborghini Urus and the 404kW Porsche Cayenne Turbo. That said, both of those models are awaiting their own performance-flagship petrol-electric hybrid variants, which will in turn outdo the Audi. Interesting times, eh?
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