Audi S8
Why 6.0: A twin-turbo V8 doing 563 hp through a nearly silent mild-hybrid system, wrapped in the same sheet metal as a diplomat's A8 — the S8 is built for buyers who want the pace without the RS badge announcing it. It gets driven the way any big AWD autobahn sedan gets driven: continent-crossing miles, not lap times.
Layout
Natural habitat
Ride comfort
Market value
Median asking price, good condition · €109k (2020) → €72k (2026), trending down · illustrative data
The long version
S8 buyers are disproportionately people who already know what an RS6 or an M5 costs to insure and attract, and who decided the quieter badge was worth the trade — the same basic twin-turbo V8 architecture underpins both the S8 and the RS6 Avant, just tuned down and wrapped in a longer, heavier body most people read as a diplomat's car rather than a driver's one. That anonymity is the actual selling point: real miles get put on these, mostly at license-losing speeds on unrestricted autobahn sections, precisely because nobody looks twice. Depreciation has been steep and predictable, standard for any six-figure German AWD sedan, and the used-buyer pool skews toward people chasing exactly that math rather than badge cachet. It is the most useful car in this index that nobody at a cars-and-coffee meet will recognize.