What led you to your '8?

[Goran]

I never even heard of the movie Ronin when I got my 8, I only watched the movie years afterwards. Just wanted to get that out of the way

What led up to me getting a S8? My first car was a Volvo S40. My dad talked me into getting a Volvo. I drove it for around 5 years. I felt I got enough experience and wanted something fun. This was back in 2008. The car I really wanted was a SEC 560. I saw it in loads of movies, read a lot about it, iconic car. I even had wallpapers of it on my computer. But when I finally found one and took it for a test drive it was a big disappointment. The seating position was too low, and the thing heeled like a boat in tighter turns. Don't get me wrong it sounded great, and was probably an excellent cruiser in a straight line. But not for me.
So I had to find something else. Next I found out about the M5, read about it and realised its another iconic car. I was test-driven by the dealer in one, it was very fast, but that particular one had loads of problems and was on a custom lowered suspension which was awful. I couldn't find a good one so I searched the web for other fast cars.
It was only then I found an old article about 7 series vs Jaguar (XJ?) vs S8. And I realised the S8 is a very powerful car. I found the old Tyresmoke forum before we moved over to A8parts and read as much as I could about the car. From the forum I learned that the A8 D2 engine is a very reliable engine, that's really the main thing I wanted to know. I vaguely remember someone wanted to do a manual conversion even back then, so even though I read about the auto box problems I naively assumed I could get it converted to manual easily when the auto box gave up.

I started looking for one and soon found a very nice looking S8 in Hertfordshire. 2001 S8 with 78K miles. The guy told me he works in central London and could drive the car to work so I could take a look. I took out £10K cash and felt like a drug dealer or something walking around London with that much cash. It turned out the seller is some rich guy working in some very posh looking place on St James Square. I had to get checked by security going into the building. I felt very out of place, and when I saw the car I definitely thought this is too posh for me. The bank, the guy, the car, it all added up to a very upper class impression that's just not me. I also asked a excellent Audi mechanic (4Rings in Dartford) to come along and check over the car. The security guys must have been very surprised having to let these random people in.
The mechanic said everything checked out ok, so having gone to all this trouble, I bought the car.
I still remember the feeling on the drive back home, a mixture of nervousness and feeling like won the lottery or something, driving in this very luxury car that felt way above what I could afford. That car still felt like the 70k it cost when new. Great car, I miss it, the interior was much nicer than my current S8.

When I got the car home my dad was shocked. He was a very modest person, we lived in a very small 2 bed terraced house. He was worried the neighbours would think we are into something dodgy to have a car like this parked outside. No one would believe that car cost only £10K

I remember I was so worried it would look out of place on our street and attract car thieves, I immediately bought a pair of plastic mirror caps, removed the aluminium caps, and got a A8 2.8 badge to go on the back instead of the S8 badge to disguise the car a bit.
It must have worked, every time I went to the local Audi dealer he always mistook it for a 2.8. One time he even asked me did I swap a S8 engine into it