I arrived at my friend Rick Nye’s home to collect his D2-generation 2002 Audi S8 for another one of these old car reviews I love so much. There sat this silver V8 chariot cosplaying as an executive sedan, an elegant centerpiece for Nye’s horseshoe driveway that, like his charming abode, oozed style and sex appeal in the least flamboyant way possible. Or so it did in the eyes of this young writer who hardly recalls when flagship luxury cars didn’t look like octagonal whales.
And before we go any further, no, I haven’t seen Ronin. Don’t ask. Sorry to disappoint those hoping for more movie references, but that’s okay. A good car like the D2 S8 doesn’t need stardom to attain greatness. It just has to be genuine.
Remembering The Lost Bahnstormer
Even at 20-plus years old, Nye’s S8 doesn’t look a day over 10. It’s clean. It’s tidy. It’s a mostly pristine example of a late-90s to 2000s Audi, rocking 73,000 miles on the clock without a single hole anywhere in its upholstery and an OEM+ CarPlay unit as its only mod. He’s only had it for a year at the time of publishing, but its current state is the way he intends to keep it. A drivable time capsule… Er, with CarPlay.
“I think I’ve only put 3,000 or so miles on it, and most of that was driving it back from Texas and a road trip to Palm Springs a few months ago,” Nye explains as he details how it stays so minty under the Vegas sun, which he partly attributes to his frequent absences when he’s away as a commercial pilot. “It mostly sits around the airport parking garage where it feels it belongs.”
Specs:
Current Values: $10,000 to $30,000 (based on mileage and condition)
Powertrain: 4.2L DOHC V8 // 5-speed automatic
Horsepower: 364 horsepower @ 7,000 RPM
Torque: 317 pound-feet @ 3,400 RPM
Seating Capacity: 4
Cargo Volume: 17.6 cubic feet
MPG: 13 city, 20 highway, 15 combined
Curb Weight: approx. 3,860 pounds
Actual production numbers are tricky to find, but it’s widely agreed that North America got about 1,250 cars, if not fewer. The D2 was the first-ever S8. The D2 A8 as a whole was also the first Audi to utilize an aluminum space frame, which they proudly proclaimed with a circular emblem on the corner of the door sill and B-pillar. The D2 S8 was also the first Audi sports sedan to be featured as an action movie hero car, thanks to Ronin, starting a lineage that’d later be followed by The Transporter, Taken, Hitman, and more.
Fun fact. The key phrases earlier are “sports sedan” and “action movie,” as the first Audi movie car was actually an Audi 5000 in E.T.
A Transcontinental Express
“No, no, I mean drive this car,” Nye offered. “Take it wherever, do what you got to do, and really feel it out.”
I originally planned to take the car for the evening. Nye insisted I take it for the weekend. Was he this generous because this generation was truly exceptional? Or was it to flex some Bush-era motoring on a Zoomer who was still shitting their pants when this car was discontinued? Ah, well. Didn’t matter. At that point, it’d only be rude to refuse. And so I took his keys and wafted towards the horizon.
I took the long way home on the first night, chasing the mountains’ edge at the city outskirts as the sun dipped beneath their peaks. The S8 delighted me as I’m sure it did some young exec back in my diaper years, puttering along and lazily slushing its five gears below 3,000 rpm as I blasted Japanese city pop through crystal-clear OEM speakers.
The leather was a little firm, but the seats were plenty supportive, and the split armrests that double as storage cubbies are an ingenious touch I wish more large cars emulated. Aircon blows frosty through seven forward vents, just like the cooling system that works tirelessly to ensure that lump of a V8 never bumps the temp needle above half, even during 100-degree summers.
Audi’s efforts also get the Friends N’ Family stamp of approval. A family birthday dinner on the second night and a movie outing with friends the following night were exercises of the S8’s unwavering talent for shuttling adults in comfort and speed. On the Strip, it blends seamlessly into the neon-lit river of Ubers and limos before making the highway excursion home without breaking a sweat like a proper Bahnstormer, all with three passengers in tow.
If there’s any bone to pick, it’s those door plastics showing their age more than any other interior material by a country mile, picking up scratches and wearing loose with time, feeling more Volkswagen than Audi as a result. Audi isn’t the only one guilty of chintzy plastics, however, as it was seemingly a trend that plagued that era of German cars.
Those S Badges Mean Something
What isn’t chintzy is how the S8 conducts itself while bearing its badge, which presumably meant “Super-fast-as-hell-my-dude,” or something like that in German. At a Car and Driver-tested 5.8 seconds to 60 and 14.4 seconds to the quarter-mile at 99 mph, it surely was super fast in its day, and its unflappable highway manners and 155-mph top speed certainly cement that.
Okay, fine. The gruntier Mercedes-Benz S55 AMG, despite being heavier and rear-drive versus the S8’s Quattro all-wheel drive, was 0.3 and 0.4 seconds quicker, respectively, with a quarter-mile trap three mph faster. Today’s ND Miata and GR86 also blitz the S8 by roughly the same amount. However, it’s still no slacker. Like its bodywork, it just likes to carry itself with a little more restraint and maturity.
The 4.2-liter V8, a smooth and capable workhorse, thrums enthusiastically to its 7,000-rpm peak, its hushed exhaust getting throatier once it starts singing in the higher octaves. The five-speed auto is decent at executing firm, timely upshifts and holding gears to keep you basking in the V8’s powerband in Sport, although it’s a little recalcitrant when downshifting or manually swapping cogs. A DSG, this most certainly is not, but it better suits its character, anyway–no one is or ever will track these things.
Just as sorted is the suspension. The S8 is brilliantly composed and is as well-suited to carving as it is commuting. Height is nearly an inch lower than a standard D2 A8, with larger sway bars, 40% firmer compression damping, and 30% firmer spring rates. Capable of 0.88 g back in the day, it nearly matched the sportier and more aggressive S55’s 0.90 g, a figure which Nye’s particular S8 can easily obliterate with its Michelin Pilot Sport 4S rubber.
“It’s shockingly light in the front, which it shouldn’t be,” Nye raves, lauding Audi’s suspension tuning and the S8’s apparent reluctance to understeer. “The engine is in front of the front wheels, basically. I don’t know how they made it drive so well. It shouldn’t.”
“It’s fleet, secure, and quietly confident,” Car and Driver’s John Phillips praises in an in-period review. “It corners flat and true and stops with reassuring force.”
“Four-piston Brembo ventilated disc brakes and 18-inch Avus wheels wrapped in 245/45ZR18 Dunlop SP Sport tires serve up good stops and sharp cornering,” MotorTrend’s Chuck Schifsky notes in a short first-drive review. “Its ride is slightly rougher than that of an A8, but the S8’s improved steering response and reduced body roll are worth it.”
This leviathan is a shockingly competent sweetheart when the highway fades into scenic two-lanes, dispatching undulations, midcorner bumps, and fast esses without fuss. It’ll never be mistaken for a sports car, but to move like this in a near-two-ton luxo sedan carries its own sense of whimsy.
Its athleticism is noticeable on the street but doesn’t detract from the luxury experience. It merely gives bumps a bit more of an edge but is never upsetting, and it pays off when the S8 leans ever so slightly, digs in, and holds steady all the way around a bend. Surely, at douchebag pace around a racetrack, that hilariously forward-mounted V8 will rear its fugly head. But at a spirited backroad pace, which is how most of these will be driven anyway, it’s more than up to the task.
I’m sure the Lexus IS350 F Sport I outran in the twisties near Goodsprings would agree.
One of Audi’s Finest Is A Modern Classic
Here I am, writing this review, looking back on a car I forgot existed until weeks ago with deeply rose-tinted goggles. But, of course, it’s not perfect.
Rarity and age make it a challenge to source parts, not to mention their high cost. Those 4.2-liter V8s are their own maintenance hurdle, but Nye is more so kept awake at night by the transmission, notorious for either running a gazillion miles or disintegrating into atoms without notice. It lacks the aggression of its contemporaries in both speed and looks, and, frankly, an immaculate Lexus LS or Toyota Celsior for the same money will be far more coddling. And, again, seriously, what are these door plastics?
But a D2 S8 is still a good car. A damn good, lovably endearing car in a way the Germans don’t really do anymore, with all-wheel drive capability to boot and a “just right” way in which it balances comfort and performance like no other of its era.
As Nye puts it best: “It’s used Kia Soul money for so much car.” Quick enough, with a sonorous V8, and an impressively multitalented chassis lends to the D2 S8 being an Audi worth remembering, with or without Robert De Niro fame points.
Published in Reviews
