This 21-foot Audi A8 Limousine Is the Anti-Hot Rod
What happens when you marry a little engine and a big ol’ body?

Though hotrodding can be a hugely complex undertaking, there's usually a simple formula at its center: Little car, big motor. Chopped-and-lightened Ford Model with a 7-liter whatever? Perfect. A (probably beige) '97 Mercedes C-Class and a 4.3-liter AMG V8? Wunderbar. With its latest one-off, the Audi A8L Extended, Audi has decided to take the opposite path: adding 3.6 feet to the already long A8L while maintaining the model's teeniest engine, a six-cylinder. If not "hot," maybe Ingolstadt's going for "low and slow"?
To match the rest of the car's advanced aluminum frame and cladding, Audi engineers worked for over a year to create an elongated body that would maintain the model's rigidity without adding unnecessary weight. That means—despite the length, reinforcing beams and added thrones—the 6-seat Audi A8L Extended weighs "just" 5,331 pounds, or a full 600 pounds less than the four-seat Bentley Mulsanne Speed. That allows the Audi's relatively puny 3.0-liter six-cylinder (in comparison, the Mulsanne sports a 6.75-liter V8) to motivate the limousine to 60 mph in an entirely-acceptable 7.1 seconds. (In the Seventies, Mercedes' 6.9-liter 450SEL "hot rod" took 7.5.) In concert with 15+ inch brakes cribbed from the S8, this grand 'n' gaudy Audi should perform just as serenely as the standard car.
The seating arrangement is anything but standard, however: Audi swapped the classic face-to-face arrangement of the Lincoln Limo for what we can only call a "bus" arrangement; in other words, three pairs of forward-facing seats. While the layout is surely less nausea-inducing, we can't help but wonder how inter-row communication will suffer. An important suit in the second row cranes his neck backward towards the important suit in row three:
"Small sandwiches will be served at the meeting, Chancellor."
"What?"
"Small sandwiches, sir."
"Pardon me?"
"TINY SANDWICHES!"
Audi hasn't revealed who commissioned the Aluminumousine, but that small-displacement engine points to China and its strict road taxes. Goodbye, beautiful whale.
MORE TO READ
Related
The New Audi A8 Doesn’t Need to Sell
Why has Audi’s flagship sedan failed? The better question: Does it even matter?
Related
The 9 Custom Limousines the Oscars Nominees Should Be Using
Arriving in a stretched Town Car is passé. Let’s get weird.
Related
A Look Inside the Presidential Limousine
We break down the Beast, President Obama’s hyper-trick Oval Office on wheels.
Related
For Prom Night in the Mojave, a Jeep Wagoneer Limousine
Love for the original American luxury 4×4 goes on. And on and on and on.
Related