2012 Audi S8 will get 520 hp Twin-Turbo V8. Really?

It’s being reported that the 2012 Audi S8 will get a 4.0 litre, twin-turbo V8 with 520hp. Which doesn’t really seem enough.

There was a time when we thought that the Audi S8 had come to the end of its life. We thought all things ‘Green’ and the economic woes of the world would put paid to the S8. But thankfully not.

At the end of 2009 Audi’s Design Director Stefan Sielaff let slip that there would indeed be an Audi S8 in 2012, although he didn’t give us much in the way of detail. But now we do have some detail. Although how accurate it is remains to be seen.

Car & Driver are reporting that the Audi S8 will get a 4.0 litre twin-turbo V8 with 520bhp. Which we sort of buy.

We buy the fact that Audi feel they have to move away from the Lamborghini V10 in the last S8 to help with emissions and economy. It’s what all the other premium makers are doing, and Audi needs to do the same.

What we’re not sure we buy is the claim of 520hp. It just doesn’t really seem enough. It falls well short of the S63, with its 544 horses and certainly the bonkers S65 with 630hp.

BMW aren’t playing the M7 game so there’s no real direct comparison, but we suppose the 760i with 544bhp is a reasonable comparison. Even Jaguar’s S/C V8 manages to deliver almost as much as the S8 is apparently going to get, even though its far from being a dedicated ‘Performance’ model.

Maybe Audi are banking on the S8 being lighter than the competition. It’s true that the A8 is a bit lighter than the 760i or the S63, but it’s about 100kg heavier than the XJ. So unless Audi do some severe weight-pruning on the S8 we do think 520hp is a bit low.

We should know by Frankfurt 2011.