Audi RS Q8: In a world of kale and kindness, this car is an Apache gunship

I was looking forward to my time with this madman because it flies in the face of everything that woke types hold dear. But there was a problem.

Audi RS Q8: the fastest SUV but where’s the fun?

I have always had my doubts about Lamborghini’s SUV, the Urus. It looked like it didn’t really have the courage of its convictions – like the designers wanted something outlandish and Lamborghinish but lost their nerve and rounded everything off to make it more palatable on a day-to-day basis. I was therefore a bit excited when I heard it was to be given a mid-term facelift.

Excellent. This would be an opportunity for it to be fitted with space lasers and extra flames. And maybe they could change the name because, let’s be honest, Urus sounds like a urinary tract infection. Alas, that didn’t happen. What did happen is they made it a plug-in hybrid, and I’m sorry but that’s not acceptable. A plug-in hybrid Lambo is absurd. It’s like finding out movie hard-man Vinnie Jones spends his evenings doing embroidery.

What makes the decision even more odd is that the Urus’s sister car, the Audi RS Q8, was recently updated too. And this new version isn’t a plug-in hybrid. It was given more power than ever before and almost all of it came from internal combustion. Weird. Audi put its mad Italian son in a nice pair of slacks and turned its stay-at-home goody-goody German daughter into a fire-breathing monster.

Let me give you the headlines. The RS Q8’s four-litre V8 engine has two turbos and produces, in the version I tested, 471kW and 850Nm. The result is a top speed of 280km/h, a 0-100km/h time of 3.6 seconds and fuel consumption measured in gallons per inch. What you’re talking about here, then, is the fastest SUV of them all, a point Audi proved by getting it round the Nürburgring track in a barely believable 7min 36.7sec.

Audi has turned its stay-at-home goody-goody German daughter into a fire-breathing monster.

All of the grunt is fed to all four wheels through a torque vectoring differential. The air suspension is controlled by a 48V system, which means the ride, despite the wheels being larger than the rings of Saturn, is actually quite good. And the brakes are carbon ceramic, which they need to be because this car weighs more than your house.

I’ve got to be honest here. I was looking forward to my time with this madman because it flies in the face of everything that woke types hold dear. In a world of kale and kindness, it’s an Apache gunship. So I was going to enjoy making tyre-squealy V8 noises all week and then I’d have lots to write about, and I could conclude by saying that, while it’s bloody good fun, it’s too daft to be a realistic day-to-day option and that you’d be better off with a less bonkers, and cheaper, Audi RS6 Avant.

But there was a problem. After a lifetime in the TV industry where lateness is not allowed, under any circumstances, ever, I’ve become pathologically punctual. If I say I will be there at eight, I will be there at eight. And not one minute past because that’s rude. As a result of this I now have to leave the house slightly earlier than seems necessary because I know that before setting off I’ll need a minute or two to disable all the infernal bongs and beeps that modern cars make when you stray out of lane or break a speed limit.

These audible warnings are now mandatory on all new cars sold in Europe and, what’s more, the driver must perform a “series of functions” to turn them off. Motor manufacturers can’t just fit a big red “everything off” button.

Recently, however, I’ve noticed that carmakers are getting ingenious, fitting beeps that are barely audible and reducing the “series of functions” down to a point where you have to push the same button twice. But Audi is German, and when you give a German a rule they will obey it. If the lawmakers want a series of functions, then a series of functions is what will be provided.

A peek inside the Audi RS Q8.

So, five minutes after getting into the RS Q8, I was still buried in the command and control centre, swearing at the complexity. Eventually my girlfriend Lisa asked Google for advice and we managed to shut down the lane-departure system. But the speed warning stuff? That was beyond us; eventually, with my punctuality gene making me sweaty, Lisa said she’d work it out on the move. So we set off.

The bonging started on my own bloody driveway, which the car had decided has a 30km/h limit. And as I tried to make up for lost time, it carried on. This made me even more sweary. Lisa, meanwhile, had got into a legal disclaimer like the sort of thing you get from Docusign, but she couldn’t agree to anything because the car said such a thing wasn’t possible when it was moving.

We eventually gave up and I was forced to drive along in a 471kW, 280km/h car at whatever speed the local government had decided was appropriate. And there’s more idiocy too. Because while we were fishing around in the car’s brain, we found that you can adjust just about every single one of its characteristics. How it rides. How it corners. What it sounds like. The lot.

And I’m sorry, but Audi knows how to make a good car. So why is it charging people £152,790 for something that they have to make themselves? That’s like going to a restaurant and being given all you need to make the supper along with a barbecue set, an Aga, a steamer and a tagine so that you can choose how you want everything to be cooked.

No. I pay. You do it.

Five minutes after getting into the RS Q8, I was still buried in the command and control centre, swearing at the complexity.

That night, back at home, I asked Google how the speed warning can be deactivated and couldn’t believe how complicated the procedure is. At one point you arrive at a screen where there are three options: A, B or C. And the correct answer, in the best traditions of multiple-choice exams, is “D, none of the above”. What you actually have to push is a meaningless symbol in the top left corner of the screen, and that takes you to the right page. And to disable the speed warning you don’t actually disable the speed warning. To do that you have to turn off the traffic sign recognition.

And remember, you have to do this every single time you get in the car. Which means the RS Q8 is not fun and even more pointless than I imagined.

Which forces me to conclude that you’d be better off with the cheaper and less bonkers RS6 Avant. Preferably one that’s two years old and therefore not fitted with any of the electronic nannies.

Jeremy’s rating: 3/5