"This Is the Best Automotive Interior Under $120,000"
The word “functional” is often used as a mild insult, bestowed on that which is plain or unexciting. Yet it also means something that works as designed. In that regard we’d describe the Audi S8’s cabin as supremely functional, in the same way that a business jet or Knoll furniture is functional, delivering luxury without frivolity, style without sizzle, containing everything that is necessary and (almost) nothing that is not.
The top-spec Audi sedan has, thus far, largely escaped from the arms race of pointless gadgetry in which luxury carmakers have become embroiled. There are no mood-sensing variable scent dispensers. And there are still buttons to control temperature regulation and the audio system; the Audi does not force its driver to learn one of those worse-than-an-iPod interfaces that some rival manufacturers have spent millions developing.
Ergonomically, the S8 is a paragon. The seats are superb, staying comfortable over vast, state-spanning distances. The heating-and-ventilation system is capable of keeping four occupants in four climate zones different enough to be separated by continents. And noise reduction is good enough to make a ballistic autobahn run sound little louder than a cruise around the park with a nervous grandmother. If you have to pick one car to spend the rest of your life sitting in, make it this one.
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