2020 Audi RS Q8

Ask marketers what’s in a name and you’ll suddenly find yourself in a meeting where you’ll be informed that the future-proofing of a product’s rationalization cycle as it pertains to branding is at its core a consumer call-to-action activation and a mission-focused key-performance indicator factoring SEO key words from the global research of the monetization structure critical to ROI.
Sit near the door, walk out like you’re going to the bathroom, don’t come back.

We writers have long understood a name isn’t that important, it’s the product that will come to define the name. Recalling who C3PO and R2D2 is easy, but now try to imagine an XT4 or a Q50. If they’d been in anyway interesting, you’d know instantly what they are.

We just spent a day with a 591-hp SUV good enough to be named Sue, but Audi will call it the the 2020 Audi RS Q8 when it arrives this summer. We like Q8 RS better, like the TT RS and not like the RS 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Maybe we’ll get used to it, but RS Q8 doesn’t ring right. [Announcer] Watch RESCUE 8, this spring, only on Fox.

Our preference aside, it’s the product that matters, and this is a hell of a product. The RS version of Audi's Q8 mid-size luxury ute is a hard-charging, 591-hp beast. Think Lamborghini Urus for the buyer whose investment portfolio is a little less yacht heavy.

Audi's new super SUV is the first non-car for the RS brand and the product is much more than sticking RS badges on a Q8. Built on the same MLB platform as the Urus, Porsche Cayenne, and Bentley Bentayga it out-sleeks them all. No fighter-jet cues, no ridiculous chrome grilles, no 911 affectations. Compared to the Q8, there are subtle exterior changes to the grille, the rear bumper, a longer spoiler coming off the roof, and available 23-inch wheels.

A Proper Big Gun
Thanks to the family’s 4.0-liter twin-turbocharged V-8 and eight-speed automatic combo, the 591-hp RS Q8 should run a 60 time of 3.6 seconds and hit up to 190 mph, according to Audi’s tests. That’s 50 horses up on the Porsche Cayenne Turbo and 50 short of the Urus. Punch the accelerator and the RS Q8’s turbochargers wake in an instant, the thrust hits, and the standard air suspension squats hard onto its hind quarters, the nose lifts, and hang on kids we’re going places. All-wheel drive assures the repeatability of this exercise and that the Q8’s horses turn to speed. It’s silly fun, a little ridiculous too. Size, mass, power, and the danger inherent in that cocktail are always crowd pleasers. If you go to the circus without the hope that the elephants will trample their handlers, I don’t want to go to the circus with you.





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