What led you to your '8?
 

In my case it was - in the first instance - not an Audi at all, but a Lexus LS, when a work colleague picked me up at O'Hare Airport in late '90s in his immaculate LS400. I couldn't believe the quality, quietness and comfort of it, which piqued my interest in "luxobarges" (although I hate that term!).

Three or four years later, that interest morphed from Lexus to Audi (predictably...) when I saw Ronin in 2002, and another six years later - after looking at loads and loads of D2s - I ended up with Herman, and have never regretted that choice.

However, I still have a soft spot for the big Lexus though, and this new Jay Emm review:

https://youtu.be/tLxpYEVe8uA

of the 600Lh brought back all of the charms of this lovely limo - as well as him giving a little nod to the S8 over the Merc and BMW +++

Look at my nick :o

Also the fact that it pretty much doesn't rust compared to any other car of its age.

You’re not alone in the appreciation for the Lexus LS series. I also have a huge soft spot for them. Great cars and I would still like to get one of the earlier models if I had the space (story of my life).

Regarding what led me to my 8, it was a visit to the Earl’s Court motor show when I was still a kid with my uncle in the early/mid 90’s ( can’t remember the exact year) and I saw the “chrome” A8 on a stand and I said one day I will own one of these cars. About 20 years later I bought my first A8 2.8 and I’ve had an 8 in some capacity for the past 7 years since.

I prefer rocket couch :D

Mine was entirely accidental. I was shopping for an A6 Avant back in 2001 to carry servers to customer sites, and walked in to the Audi dealership next to the office carrying a tape measure. As soon as the sales manager saw me measuring the boot he appeared to teleport out of his office to right by my side and asked what I was looking for.

"Something that can eat up the miles and has a big boot, for about £15K" was my spec. I knew that wouldn't buy a used A6 from a dealer at the time, but it would buy one privately.

"Aha", he said, "meet me outside in a moment" and disappeared in to the back.

A few minutes later he arrived out the front with a 1999 A8 3.7 quattro, in silver with black leather, and I was smitten :love: They had just taken it in px against a new one, the previous owner having put 90K on it in 2 years. With that mileage they wouldn't put it on the forecourt and so were going to send it for auction where, I imagine, such a thing would have brought a lot less than my budget. Mysteriously though, given I had mentioned my budget, he could let me have it for exactly 15K, which was nice. I didn't even haggle and bought it on the spot :ROFL:

I absolutely adored that car and put another 120K on it until the gearbox died, 6 months before A8parts started up (about 2005 I think?). No one appeared to be rebuilding them back then and a new one was out of the question so I px'd it for something mundane. I had a succession of A4s and A6s, but I pined for the 8 every day for the next ten years until I was able to buy my Dolphin Grey S8.

Now I have seven of them :rolleyes:

"Jet-propelled sofa." here :D
That's exactly what my friends called my first S8 back in 2002 when they were as rare as rocking-horse poo and very little was anything like as fast.
I didn't see another single one for some years.

As to why, technical intrigue I guess. I read about the A8 when it first came out and was fascinated by the technology; aluminium, V8, 4WD etc.
I've generally had largish cars and with 3 kids needed them. As noted in another thread that included a succession of Rover 800s, usually two at a time.
The A8 was a definitive step up from Rover and slightly (less than you might think) bigger though noticeably faster and more robust.
Then when the S8 appeared I just decided I had to to get one and started looking; it took several years to find the right one at the right price, and it was a stunner!

Meanwhile, at least 2 years before I got the car I acquired the private plate S8 with my initials. That showed intent and commitment. +++

Great thread idea +++

So, my History runs back to 2004 when I picked up a 2001 A8 4.2 Quattro Sport. Silver. Black leather. Glass sunroof, towbar, blinds, xenon plus. It had 99,000 miles on the clock at 3.5 years old, but I found to my delight an Audi extended warranty leaflet in the glovebox when I was looking at it at the backstreet used car garage and snapped it up for 13.5K at the time. My mum thought I was mad buying such a high mileage car, but I loved it. Had a number of things fixed under warranty and enjoyed every minute of it. Hands down the best A8 I've ever had.

It was a great car, even had a company fuel card for it, but fears over the gearbox back in those days eventually led me to part company.

The driver behind buying it however - was that Dave (a8parts) - had previously bought a 1997 4.2 Quattro sport, Green. Ecru leather. Solar Sunroof, servotronic, heated rear seats, blinds etc. It was a very good spec. I remember test driving an S8 with him first - and whilst it was undoubtedly the better car, it was outside of budget. The A8 was LPG converted and did a staggering amount of miles. It had the gearbox refurbed by a local specialist but was never the same. It was part exchanged for an M3. A few years ago I located it and bought it him back for his 40th birthday. It was in a sad state, had lost at least 100K miles off the clock (!) but road worthy and lasted long enough for a memorial drive home. It met its end a couple of years ago when we both agreed it was beyond any sort of economical reinstatement.

That green A8 was bought to replace a brand new (at the time) Impreza that had been bought to replace an RB5 Prodrive Impreza that used to be mine, that was stolen and never recovered. The new impreza was generic and wasn't as special as the RB5, and having had an A4 previously, I think that's where the A8 shopping came about.

Mine was more mechanical. Having come back from NZ the year before, I bought an '01 A4 2.5tdi Quattro Sport to get me around, and also take my mother wherever she wanted to go. Eight months later the high pressure fuel pump died, so started looking for another car of a similar size and age. Could find all sorts but insurance on them was just as high, if not higher than the A4. Then by chance I saw an ad on Gumtree for the A8. Price was around what I wanted to pay, insurance cost was matched and so I took the three mile walk to see it. A lovely day for a walk and still managed to get drenched from a downpour after just a mile. Literally sat in a bus shelter for 15-20 minutes waiting for it to stop. Got to the seller, had a walk around it and bought it without even taking it for a drive.

Cue the obligatory link to the Robert de Niro clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d_22U8OW2I

You need one more to complete the set!

A lot of you say how you got the car at 2-3 years old with around 100k on the clock, most examples on eBay today have 100-250k on the clock and the cars are 20 years old, hmmm.

Mine was 5 years old, but with only 23k on the clock it felt brand new - and I bought from a certain IT chap on here ;). It was soooo good I paid for it twice :rolleyes:

I bought my old one when i was planning to take a career break to look after my then-baby son (he's 11 this weekend!). I'd been idly wondering what to get - we'd only had the 1 car for quite a while as most of my travel at the time was by train due to commuting to central London.

It was almost inevitably going to be something VAG (we had an a 2004 A6 Avant at the time, and had sold a Leon Cupra R, Passat 1.8T estate etc) and I was pretty convinced I wanted either an S4 or S6. Unfortunately most of the former had dodgy history and/or longlife servicing (if at all) and the latter were in very short supply due to the RS6 (which I couldn't afford and didn't want the theft risk of).

Eventually my idle work time was spent browsing for anything sub-£10k with a dirty big V8! The S8 popped up - at a posh dealer - with sensible price tag, low miles and lots of recent bills for recommissioning and a brand new set of Michelin boots on the 20s. Went down to Poole to test drive it and LOVED it! It was sat in a showroom with Bentleys and Astons and didn't look a bit out of place, despite being far older than anything else in there.

I figured I'd run it for 2-3 years and move it on - ended up keeping it far longer, but in the end I just needed something slightly more practical in the boot department, and I was finding it spending more and more time sat in the garage unused as it was easier to just grab the keys to the one I didn't have to use a decorator's extension to put into neutral before manually dragging it out of my single garage.......

I do regret selling it, as I know I'll never have the option of another one just like it, but for me it was a great experience that I'll always have fond memories of. If I did still have it, I'd have had problems from day 1 after moving house as my garage is too short for the D2 :rolleyes: