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The Audi Q8 is a very important car in Audi’s India line-up. Sitting above the Q7, it is of course the pinnacle of the Audi Q range, and along with the A8, the twin flagships of the brand. But more importantly, where the Q7 owner likes to indulge himself in the back, the Q8 appeals to those that like to take the wheel and grab what is clearly positioned as a sporting SUV, by the scruff of its neck. A more “progressive” customer as Audi brackets them in marketing speak. These are customers that make a brand cool and desirable; they park their cars in the right places where the right set of people get exposed to the brand; they add pizzaz to the brand that drives a cascading interest down the rest of the range. These are, what you’d call, micro-influencers. And with the brand being firmly on the ascendancy – last month Audi outsold both Mercedes-Benz and BMW in Delhi-NCR, the biggest luxury market in India – their focus is even more on the hero cars. Which brings me back to South Africa and the first slide of the presentation that talks about “high recognition value”.
The Q8 never lacked for presence, that’s for sure. Couple it to the fact that it’s still a rare sight in India and you have an SUV that definitely gets you noticed. For the update the brand-characteristic single-frame gets rid of all chrome surrounds and inserts, and in its place you get black. Lots of black. Gloss black to be precise. The Audi rings are blacked out. The grille is blacked out and it extends horizontally across the full width of the nose with additional black elements. The headlamps are narrower, further emphasising the already enormous width of the Q8. The bumpers are new with more gaping air intakes, blacked-out obviously.
More black? The roof rails are black. The wing mirrors have black caps. Formerly the lip of the front bumper was finished in black which carried on to the wheel arch surrounds and the lower half of the doors but now that’s all in the body colour to contrast with the wheels that are now blacked out. The lower half of the rear bumper loses the aluminium-effect skid plates for, you guessed it, blacked out elements. The model name is in black. Even the twin tailpipes are blacked out, and these are authentic exhaust tips.
The net effect is to add a serious dose of visual sportiness which is amplified by the huge wheels. The base wheel size jumps from 19 to 21 inches, and you can option it all the way to an RS Q8-worrying 23 inches. And Audi has heard your criticism of their wheel choices for India, no more boring (looking) wheels will come to our shores.
The biggest update though is to the lights. Up front you can option HD Matrix lights with an additional laser (high) beam that will light up the road like Diwali (forget blinding cabbies in the city, they only work above 70kmph). With these headlights you can now choose between four different DRL patterns, which also changes the graphic on the (full-width) rear digital OLED tail lamps. And creep too close (within two metres) to check out the updates on the Q8 and all the digital OLED segments get triggered to flash a proximity warning reminding you to stay back.
Step inside and you’d be hard-pressed to notice any changes. You get three different inlays (wood, aluminium and carbon) and different stitching on the seats. And that’s that. The characteristic three-screen layout incorporating the 12.3-inch digital cockpit, 10.1-inch infotainment and 8.6-inch climate control screen is retained and while there’s nothing wrong in the way it operates this is no different to what you’d find on the entire Audi range. You’d be right in wanting something different, something special in a flagship – but at least now you get wireless CarPlay and Android Auto.
There’s not much in the way of compromises in the rear seat. The SUV-Coupe roofline doesn’t eat into headroom and there’s plenty of knee and shoulder room. Our test car didn’t have it, but Indian cars will have a panoramic sunroof to further open up the cabin. The sense of quality, as with all Audis, is pervasive and even though it shares its cabin with the Q7, the Q8 feels more expensive. And sporty.
Our drive route takes us down to the spectacular Cape of Good Hope, on one of the world’s great driving roads. The views are spectacular and do a good job of drawing your attention away from the fact that mechanically the Q8 remains absolutely unchanged. Laid out for us are three powertrain options but because the SQ8 isn’t destined for India, and diesel is a dirty word for the entire VW Group in our country, the Indian contingent is restricted to the mild-hybrid turbo-V6. Making an identical 335bhp and 500Nm as before, the 55 TFSI hustles to 100kmph in 5.6 seconds and on to a top speed of 250kmph. The chassis and suspension too remain unchanged, with the only difference being the larger wheels, and that brings our attention back to the SUV.
Over some lumpy patches of road the Q8 doesn’t ride with the composure and authority that we’d have liked of a big sporting SUV. A couple of years ago it would have been fine but the MLB Evo platform – shared with everything from the Urus and Bentayga to the Q7 and Cayenne – has evolved and especially the adoption of twin-chamber dampers on the recently face-lifted Cayenne has dramatically improved both the ride as well as handling capabilities. The Q8 doesn’t get those trick dampers, nor does it get the active anti-roll bars which are exclusive to the SQ8, and upsizing the wheels has further reduced the ride compliance, which broken roads will leave you in no doubt about.
Don’t get me wrong. This is by no means an uncomfortable SUV. In fact this flattens highways imperviously but it does it in a very different fashion to the Q7 with which it shares the same wheelbase. The Q8 is lower, shorter, wider and runs on far fatter rubber which delivers massive cornering grip albeit without much playfulness, the sport differential also exclusive to the SQ8. Where the Q7 delivers that loping gait for effortless mile-munching irrespective of the road conditions, things are noticeably tightened up on the (similarly air-sprung) Q8 for a noticeable reduction in pitch, body roll (and compliance), and it delivers a definite impression of sportiness within that all-important first 100 metres. The shallower glass area, the heavily bolstered seats that give you a nice warm hug, even that distant growl from the engine, all clearly differentiate it from the Q7.
And it doesn’t need a captive audience for 30 seconds to draw attention to itself. This being South Africa we kept our windows firmly rolled up but we got plenty of cheers and thumbs up; an excitable German (in a T-Cross no less, which is what our Taigun is badged for export markets) even knocked on our windows wanting to know where in Germany we’d come from (our test cars were running Ingolstadt plates). The updates might be super-mild but what they say about the Q8 having a “high recognition value” is absolutely on point.
