| COMFORT AND EQUIPMENT RATING: |
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As the sporting competitor in the luxury segment, you could forgive the A8 if it didn't quite cosset you as snugly as a 7-Series or an S-Class. And, in truth, it probably doesn't, but it is still an extremely comfortable car. The seats are large, but not so big that you feel lost in them, and they're supportive on long journeys. The steering wheel is a nice chunky shape and a reasonable size, unlike the large, thin-rimmed affair in the 7-Series. On the move, noise is quite well suppressed, but there's the occasional hum of wide tyres, particularly on some of the larger optional alloys, and the ride quality does suffer a little on poorer roads. On a concrete section of the M25, for example, it might not prove quite so cosseting. There was some excess wind noise from the A-pillar, but this seems to have been a glitch on pre-production examples we drove. That said, any tyre or wind noise is probably only audible because the engines are so quiet. No real qualms here. The boot, with its high lid, is pretty cavernous, and if you specify run-flat tyres, then you get a bit of extra space where the full-sized spare would usually sit, underneath the load bay. In the back seats, you get loads of legroom, and acres of headroom. For two adults, it's very roomy, but because the seats are designed for two, a third back seat passenger would feel a bit of an unwanted accessory, the centre seat not being very well-sculpted. The front seats have plenty of room too, but one grumble: the centre console is extremely wide, which makes you feel a bit distanced from your front seat associate. With a CD autochanger in the glovebox and a BOSE sound-system, listening to the A8's stereo is one of the pleasures of driving. It's a very good system, albeit a little tricky to operate at times because of the MMI menu-led controls. Swapping a radio station or changing to another CD can require the push of several buttons and a scroll through a menu or two. But the MMI controls (it stands for Multi Media Interface) also operate the satellite navigation, the car's suspension settings, the air-conditioning, and so on. All through one little lever, and a few ancillary buttons, instead of a lot of smaller, easier to find buttons on the dashboard. Why? But it is easier to use than BMW's i-Drive, and the monitor has a very fancy menu display system that looks like it's straight from a sci-fi film. The sat-nav is pretty easy and intuitive to use, however, though not as easy as Lexus's touch-screen jobbie, and as a passenger, the speed with which the map's zoom can be changed gives hours of fun. One minute you're looking at the entirety of Europe, from London to Berlin and Lisbon, the next second you're zoomed to 500 metres above an arrow spearing along an A-road. Okay, the novelty will probably wear off... We've given 4 stars here. Five for the stereo and the sat-nav, but minus one for the insistence on these menu-led controls and their current clunkiness.
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