Sorry De Niro, there won’t be a ‘Ronin II’ or an Audi RS 8 after all

By Stephen Edelstein October 16, 2013

audi rs8 isnt happening company executive says a8 — If you were hoping for Ronin II, keep dreaming. Audi won't be building an RS 8 super sedan. Image used with permission by copyright holder

German carmakers love parity; when one comes up with a new car, the others jump to build versions of their own. Do you think the Audi A7 or BMW M6 Gran Coupe would exist if Mercedes-Benz hadn’t conjured up the CLS-Class first?

Audi is saying “nein” to one niche, though. According to Car and Driver, the Lord of the Rings will not build an RS 8 super sedan to rival the AMG versions of the Mercedes S-Class.

Stephan Reil, the chief engineer of Audi’s quattro performance division, said that “any RS would need to offer 20- to 25-percent more power than the same model in S guise. And in this light, an RS 8 or RS A8 would not make sense.”

An RS 8 would need 630 to 655 horsepower to comply with that rule. That’s something we’d love to see, but it probably doesn’t make much business sense.

Since the launch of the RS 2 Avant of the 1990s, Audi has worked to make its RS performance models the equals of those from AMG and BMW’s M division. That includes expanding the lineup to keep pace with the other two.

There are currently more RS models on sale than at any point in history, including an RS 6 Avant wagon, RS 7 hatchback, RS 5 coupe and cabriolet, and even an RS Q3 crossover.

Turning a full-size luxury sedan into a performance car must seemed like a bit too much of a stretch for quattro, though.

That means the closest rival to Mercedes’ AMG S-Class variants will still be the Alpina B7, a tuned version of the BMW 7 Series. That is, unless you count the more flamboyant Maserati Quattroporte, which is fast, but lacks the subtlety buyers of these types of cars usually covet.

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Stephen Edelstein

Contributing Editor

Stephen is a freelance automotive journalist covering all things cars. He likes anything with four wheels, from classic cars…

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