The Henley Regatta is not the kind of event one turns up to in a jalopy. It is an establishment event for the well-to-do. So I went in an Audi A8, which if you were to buy from a Used Approved Audi dealer would cost you around £65,000.
I looked like I fitted right in, I can tell you. Even if my achievements in life so far leave me a little way off the level of the well-to-dos.
This is the kind of car that comes not with leather trim, or even leather seats. It comes with beige silk Nappa leather interior. Which is not an exaggeration or bit of flouncy marketing prose. When you slide into the current A8 it is immediately apparent that you are somewhere very special. The previous generation A8 felt expensive, but not like this.
And that’s before you press the engine start button and the steering wheel lowers, the seat’s supports fold round you and the digital TV slides back into the dashboard. Or slides out in the form of SAT NAV. It all depends on your personal settings you see.
Because this is not a car, it is a tailor-made automobile. It can come with a garage door opener, digital AND analogue TV, adaptive cruise control and lane assist. It seems redundant to tell you that it has anti-lock breaks and ISOFIX child seat preparation. It’s like telling you a kitchen has a sink.
What I liked in particular about the Audi A8 is that despite all gadgetry, it still feels like a driver’s car. With some luxury saloons, you rather get the feeling that you need to review it from the back seat as behind the wheel is simply not that special. In the A8 however, you can feel like you are driving a smaller, more naturally nimble car.
I always gripe about the floating feeling I get when driving Audis, but not in a Quattro A8, where I felt like I was really involved in the cornering while never being asked to do anything even vaguely approaching ‘work.’ There is a seemingly never-ending amount of grip and power, allowing arrogant overtakes on sweeping slip roads and relatively short straights.
Is it refined on the motorway? Is it spacious? Like so many things at this level, it goes without saying.
And with MPG in the high 30s and used prices on two and three year old cars being surprisingly affordable, I can afford to get in with Henley’s well-to-dos a lot sooner than I thought.
What’s the market like?
New and nearly new cars have some heady price tags of £55,000 - £65,000 and it’s hard at first glance to make sense of them. But the specification makes a bigger difference at this level than with any other type of car. Some of the add-ons are very expensive and if someone misses a key ‘must have’ then the car can become tricky to sell so prices drop (a bit).
One year old cars are around £45-55,000 mark. The stand-out bargain is the 3.0 diesel (47 mpg), 45,000 miles on average and a retail price tag of under £25,000. So you can have a new Mondeo or a three year old A8. I know which I would rather have.
Summary
A Master Class in luxury.