While looking up stupid, irritating, and downright irresponsible German cliches on Google Translate to use to bring you the news of the 605-horsepower, 553 pound-foot of torque beast that is the new 2016 Audi S8 Plus, I stumbled through hoch, kräftig, rasant. But none of them compared to what the car truly is – faustdick.
Google Translate gives the definition of faustdick as “big, walloping,” and I think that’ll be an accurate way to describe the S8 Plus. Not only is the regular S8 already quite a big and walloping car, but the S8 Plus comes with 85 more horses out of its 4.0-liter biturbo V8, pushing it to 60 miles an hour in a frankly absurd 3.8 seconds, up to a top speed of a limited 189.5 MPH.
Well, 189.5 MPH, but you have to pay Audi a bit extra to get it, because of course you do. Otherwise it’s limited to 155 MPH, which is a peasant’s speed.
But if you’re paying extra for that top speed anyways, Audi will throw in a few extra goodies. No, not a small plastic bag full of pencil-toppers and a mini snickers bar, as this is Audi and not a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party. Instead, Audi’s version of “goodies” includes carbon fiber-reinforced ceramic brakes and an even sportier exhaust system, to top the standard exhaust system that I’m just absolutely sure is quite sportsy already.
The car wouldn’t be truly faustdick without Faust, however, and in true Faustian fashion you must make a certain deal with Mephistopheles himself to get the S8 Plus. It only comes in the standard wheelbase model, not the long wheelbase model, so you’ll just have to slum it and drive yourself everywhere at nearly 200 MPH.
And the other part of faustdick is “dick,” and you do need to be truly rich to buy this car. It’ll set you back 145,000 euros, or about 160,000 dollars, when it goes on sale in November.
Photos credit: Audi
Contact the author at ballaban@jalopnik.com.
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