---
title: "This 21-foot Audi A8 Limousine Is the Anti-Hot Rod"
description: "What happens when you marry a little engine and a big ol' body?"
date: "2016-04-12"
modified: "2016-04-12"
authors:
  - name: "Ben Keeshin"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/ben-keeshin"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/2973/this-21-foot-audi-a8-limousine-is-the-anti-hot-rod"
categories:
  - "Aftermarket"
  - "Audi News"
  - "Car Tech"
  - "News"
  - "News by Brand"
tags:
  - "a8"
  - "Audi"
  - "China"
  - "Limousine"
  - "luxury"
  - "sedan"
---

# This 21-foot Audi A8 Limousine Is the Anti-Hot Rod

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/archive-images/0412160-audi-a8-limo-hero.jpg>)
*\<em\>www.thedrive.com</em>*

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.

![0412160-audi-a8-limo-art-1.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/0412160-audi-a8-limo-art-1.jpg>)
**Audi**

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.

![0412160-audi-a8-limo-art-2.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/0412160-audi-a8-limo-art-2.jpg>)
**Audi**

![0412160-audi-a8-limo-art-3.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/0412160-audi-a8-limo-art-3.jpg>)
**Audi**

![0412160-audi-a8-limo-art-4.jpg](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/content/archive-images/0412160-audi-a8-limo-art-4.jpg>)
**Audi**

## Author
Ben Keeshin is a former staff writer for Maxim, and before that, contributed writing to the digital sides of Road & Track and Vanity Fair.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://twitter.com/BnKshn>)