Audi A8 L 3.0 TFSI quattro Tip Review: Gr8 Expectations

What we like:

Unsurpassed quality on the inside

new MMI Touch

punchy performance despite being an entry level model

lower price tag than its closest competitors

What we dislike:

Image not as prestige as a S-Class

not the most imposing looking limo around

numb steering

extensive options can bump up price significantly

surprisingly bad rear visibility

To put it simply, there's little doubt that the new A8 has the best cabin in the class (with the equally brilliant XJ the only thorn on the A8's back). It feels both expensive, exquisite and special in here thanks to choice materials and surfaces that not only look good but also are tactile and soft to the touch. One look or touch and you are immediately aware that the interior boffins at Audi spent sleepless nights to deliver a cabin worthy of a flagship saloon model - everything just looks and feels so much more exquisite than the cabins of the rest of the Audi range.

The highly adjustable seats look especially good thanks to the patterns for the perforations and even the wood trim manages to look convincing and classy. Audi even took the trouble of designing new column stalks with gloss black inserts. The dashboard and even the steering boss are lined with leather for an even more expensive feel. Ambient lighting by LED strips further enhance the A8's cabin atmosphere - the colour of these lights can even be changed to suit each individual tastes. No one does interior ambient lighting better than Audi does.

With the additional 30mm of wheelbase over the standard wheelbase model, the stretched A8L offers its rear occupants even more legroom and an even more luxurious accommodation. Towkays seated in the rear are spoilt by the electrical adjustment for the rear seats, separate controls on the centre arm rest for the four-zone climate control, electrically operated sunshades for the side and rear windows and so on.

Like every newly launched limo model from Germany, the A8 features innovative electronic gadgetry which includes safety systems as well as Audi's latest MMI system with an integrated touch pad among others. The new MMI system with the pioneering MMI touch navigation system is one impressive bit of kit. The whole system is more intuitive to use than before thanks to more logical menus and graphics on the LCD screen that pops gracefully out of the dashboard when the car is started. MMI touch navigation comes with a touch pad like on a laptop that you can use to input destinations and addresses into the navigation system by ‘writing' alphabets onto it. Audi says it can recognize the worse of handwritings as well as Chinese characters for the Chinese market. The touchpad is a really impressive feature and is a joy to use and it can even double up as radio preset buttons when not used in navigation mode. It's just too bad that you'd have to use your left hand in right-hand drive cars and this makes it slightly less intuitive to scribble letters on the touchpad.

The A8L 3.0 TFSI's list of standard equipment will shade that of its obvious rivals. It comes with a comprehensive infotainment system with an internal hard disk, SD card readers, iPod connectivity, Bluetooth handsfree interface, sat nav, DVD/CD changer and Bose speakers, and electric sunroof, four-zone climate control, ventilated seats all round, parking sensors front and rear, reversing camera, air suspension, electrically operated boot lid, 19-inch alloys, adaptive cruise control and so on.

A new option is Audi's first night vision system, which goes one further than Merc's by actually recognising pedestrians, highlighting them within the on-screen image and giving the driver an audible warning. It can even calculate your trajectory, so will only alert you if the pedestrian is stepping into your line. In addition, the adaptive cruise control can spot when traffic from other lanes is about to move into your space by watching it move within its lane. Other optional features include massage seats with various pre-programmed massage functions, the superb 1400 watts Bang & Olufsen sound system with those tweeters that pop out of the dashboard and so on.

You'd expect the A8L 3.0 TFSI quattro to be more expensive than its entry level rivals as it offers more performance and equipment but in actual fact, the entry level A8 is priced lower than the likes of the BMW 730Li and the Mercedes-Benz S300L, making it quite possibly the best value-for-money luxury limo there is out there.

Credits: Story and Photos by Raymond Lai