What Would the 1994 Audi A8 Flagship Limo Look Like Today?

It's still German, still large, still a luxury car; in many ways, the A8 paved the way for the modern Audi brand. But you don't see Doug DeMuro drag racing it like he did the RS2 recently. It's almost as if the limo wants to be forgotten, and to see if there's anything in there worth salvaging, we needed to check out this YouTube video.

For the past few weeks, TheSketchMonkey has been paying attention to the styling of various German icons. We've always thought that Audis from that era don't have a design identity other than being rounded. There are a few exceptions, of course, but the ones from the early 1980s are more interesting, especially the Ur-Quattro.

Maybe by removing the things that make it look outdated, the first-generation A8 can look better. And that's what TheSketchMonkey attempts to do here, first by getting rid of the protective trim down the sides. That is followed up with a few horizontal creases that add character, but which probably would have been impossible to make back in the day.

The rendering process is very entertaining, partly because the artist has to add many attention-grabbing details. But there's simply not enough there to celebrate the 1994 Audi A8. Maybe if they put the A8 aluminum coupe prototype in production...

The area where this car does stand out is engineering. The A8 was the first mass-produced car with an aluminum chassis, the so-called Audi Space Frame. The S8, which came out in 1996, combined 14-way adjustable luxury seats with a 4.2-liter V8 and quattro.

The funny thing is that the current generation of A8 doesn't get that much attention either. Sure, its air suspension raises one side to protect you in a crash, and that's cool. But it is one of those examples where there's a gap between what manufacturers want to make (an elegant luxury vehicle), and what customers are actually after (an exciting flagship like the AMGs or Teslas).