The flagship 420kW twin-turbo V8 Audi S8 has been dropped from Audi Australia's portfolio off the back of some of the lowest sales on record.
As the last remaining member of the flagship A8 limousine range offered here, the axing of the S8 ends a 30-year run of the A8 being sold in Australia, with the first generation having arrived back in 1995.
Still listed on the firm’s website with a link to pre-owned stock, the S8 is no longer available to configure, with reports suggesting the MY25 version never even made it Down Under.
It was originally thought that an all-electric limousine replacement was in the pipeline for the current fourth-generation (D5) A8, but it’s now thought the global drop in demand for EVs and limousines might have killed that model off as well.
Just 10 S8s found homes in Australia last year, the lowest result in the history of the A8 in this market, beating even the miserable 12 sales that were racked up back in 2000.
This year might have been even worse, if sales had continued, as just three new S8s were registered in the first six months of the year, but those figures might have been artificially limited by the number of cars available to buy.
With just 21 A8s and S8s sold in 2022 and 40 in 2019, the best year for the all-paw limo was 2011 when 125 units landed on Aussie driveways.