The best selling premium saloon for the crème de la crème in Europe – outselling the classic Mercedes-Benz S-class and the 7-series BMW by a large margin – is shortly to hit Indian roads for the rarified few. Adil Jal Darukhanawala gets behind the wheel of the stunning Audi A8 to bring you this exclusive first drive report of a car which is very very good and means serious business.

The word Audi comes from the Latin "to hear" and I am sure that the German firm's foray into India will be heard in the right circles. Preparing to launch in a small but determined manner all over the country with its portfolio of beautifully engineered and superbly built automobiles, this premier marque from the Volkswagen Group is taking the flagship approach for its India operations. And that means its work is pretty much cut out for it will have to take on not just the likes of the 7-series BMW and sister marque (from the VW stable) Skoda's Superb but also the big daddy of them all - the mighty S-class from Mercedes-Benz.

I got to grips with an example of the A8 powered by a V8 engine last month, driving around in the area surrounding lngolstadt which included a mix of B-roads (the tight and twisty country roads) coupled with a long blast on the autobahn from Ingolstadt to Munich. Ideal terrain to make out the balance and refinement plus also the ride and handling as well as the performance of a car which has consistently taken the fight to its more established home rivals. Much of the brilliance of the car has to be in the graceful manner in which it goes about its task. It is a design which is classy rather than flashy and there is the timeless elegance to its lines, seemingly the work of a designer armed with an engineering acumen to pen the long low form with a nice balance of bonnet, cabin and boot flowing in a most harmonious manner. Also evidently helping to dispel the long form (5181mm is the overall length of the A8L) are the minimal overhangs, coupled with those large 17inch alloys wearing 235/55 R17 99Y rubber. Overall there is a certain sense of calm yet one gets the hint that this is a car which seems to be wearing a business suit but is yet capable of running the 100 metre sprint with as much aplomb if called to do so.

And if it's the latter case then she sure has the wherewithal to deliver. Audi offers a choice of engines for the A8 with the top of the line offering being the mouth watering 6.0-litre 12-cylinder-engined model which has 450 horses on call and stomps out 580Nm of torque (with over 95 per cent of this latter detail being spread across the rev range from 2300 rpm to 5300rpm). Transferring the drive from the engine to the quattro permanent four wheel drive system is the brilliant ZF-designed and built six-speed Tiptronic transmission which shifts seamlessly and positively. This car is a bomb, no other way to describe it, sprinting from rest to 100kmph in 5.1 seconds and goes from zero to 200kmph in 16.9 seconds before hitting the electronically limited 250kmph top speed.

The 6.0-litre W12 is obviously the top of the class but the 4.2-litre V8 is the car which sells the most and is also a very accomplished performer. With 335 horses on call and 430Nm of torque, it also employs the same ZF six-speed Tiptronic 'box (which is also used by the likes of the BMW 7451 and the Jaguar XJR among others). I had this car for the entire duration of the drive and was simply floored by the way she behaved and performed. What was so intoxicating was not just the way the car motored away from rest or in the way she made short work of overtaking large tractor-trailer rigs on the autobahns but the way she handled in almost all road conditions and that too with the best ride quality I have ever experienced.

The reason for this is not just in the supremely sorted out suspension all around or in the way the quattro system works or even in the weight distribution. It has as much to do with the way the car is constructed, employing the ASF system, in effect the Audi Space Frame technology which is all aluminium. Built in conjunction with aluminium major Alcoa, the A8 not only has a complete all-aluminium body and platform but the latest versions also boast front and rear suspension links in this material. Other crucial aluminium bits are the brake calipers, wheels and wheel carriers all of which combine to make for a significant reduction in all up weight, considerably lesser than the A8's rivals while yet being stronger and of course having greater rigidity and by extension offering a stunning power to weight ratio. Of course the downside to all this aluminium usage is that if there are prangs, one has to head for nothing other than a comprehensively kitted out Audi service centre to iron out the creases!

This has to be one of the best sporty saloons money can buy in the world, it does the zero to 100kmph dash in 6.3 seconds and until a few months ago it was, like most Audi's, electronically limited to 250kmph. However Audi has now dispensed with this gentlemen's agreement among the German car makers and abolished the self-instilled speed governor and on the autobahn I had this car roaring past the 270kmph mark in utter serenity! There was no wind noise, no tyre roar, just a slight hint of the exhaust to make me aware of the gem of an engine at work. Many a time I had to stop myself from letting out whoops of delight because this was not a Porsche 911 sports coupe but a honest to goodness five-passenger four-door saloon on song and displaying footwork of an impeccable nature. The rack and pinion steering gear and the large brakes plus those wide tyres gave a confidence inspiring ride and feel whatever the speed and were just as impressive in their contribution towards the overall pleasure quotient.

Let me move on to another very impressive feature of the A8, no make that all Audis, and that concerns build quality. I have seen, driven and experienced many cars from all the German marques but let me bring you up to speed on build quality: the Audis are just light years ahead of the rest. This is no exaggeration but plain and simple fact. The shut line tolerances, the clever ways of panel overlap, the integration of plastic and metal and glass on the exterior are areas worthy of inspection while in the interior one can only marvel at the superb fitment and the quality of materials plus the simplistically elegant manner in which the entire design is executed. The Audi A8's central dash incorporates the MMI (multi-media interface) which is a more intuitive and rational system than BMW's much reviled iDrive system or the Mercedes COMAND system. The MMI manages info and controls on a mid-dash screen with some information and controls also placed in the instrument cluster.

Audi will launch the A8 in a soft manner in India beginning this month. To start its India operations, the company has divided the country into four geographical zones and has lined up four organisations to spearhead sales and service in each zone. The A8 is great in all respects but will be pricey, pricier than the equivalent S-class also (but then that's the case in Europe as well and yet it sells more than the three-pointed star flagship!) but a drive in one will obviously highlight its pedigree and class. The moot question though will be whether the four rings have enough of an aura in themselves to see off all comers. Life isn't fair you know!
Adil Jal Darukhanawala