Audi pulls the old Horch brand name out of the mothballs and sticks it on the back of a long A8. This is the Audi A8 L Horch, an extra-long version with which Audi wants to hit the Mercedes-Maybach S-class.
Audi has already introduced the facelifted A8 to the world in China, but not in a very usual way. For the time being, the brand only presents the A8 L Horch, a variant that is even longer than the A8 L. The Audi A8 8 L Horch extends over a distance of 5.42 meters and is therefore 12 centimeters longer than the A8 L. , a variant that in turn is already 13 centimeters longer than the regular A8. The wheelbase of the A8 L Horch has also been stretched. With its wheelbase of 3.26 meters, the A8 L Horch gains 13 centimeters compared to the A8 L.
You probably already feel it coming: the A8 L Horch serves as a direct competitor for the superlative of the S-class: the Maybach S-class. The Mercedes-Maybach S-class is 5.5 meters long and has 3.4 meters between the front and rear axles. The Maybach version thus wins in what format, although the concept of the A8 L Horch is otherwise comparable to that of the über-S. The A8 L Horch also has to be especially important to the customer captain seats can really spoil in the back. Between the spacious-looking seats is a console with cooled cup holders and a display to control the local climate, among other things.
Striking news: the A8 L Horch has only been proposed for the Chinese market and it is not yet known whether the Maybach competitor will also come to Europe. This extra long and even more luxurious A8 is certainly not completely irrelevant, because it already shows how the facelifted A8 is designed. The A8 gets a new nose with new headlights, copies where from now on a bite has been taken. The grille seems a little less wide and of course the bumper work is completely new. The rear lights, now equipped with OLED technology, have a new light signature. At least as striking are not only the 20-inch wheels of this Horch version, but also the H logos placed on its center caps and on the rear doors.
The Horch name is new in Audi’s recent past, but not in distant Audi history. Horch was a car brand that became in 1904 and from which Audi more or less evolved in the 1920s. Horch founder Horch lost the rights to use his own name and then translated it into “Audi” in Latin. In 1928 Audi and Horch were merged with DKW and Wanderer under the name Auto Union. After Auto Union came into the possession of Volkswagen, Daimler-Benz ran off with the Horch brand name. Horch has been back in the hands of Audi since the 1980s and it is now the first time that the name has returned on a car.
The Audi A8 L Horch has a 340 hp 3.0 V6 under the hood in China, so surprisingly not a big V8. We expect more information about the version of the renewed A8 intended for the European market soon.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl