Four Things I Learned After a 4,000-Mile Trek in Our Kia Sorento

audi s8 Full OverviewOur MotorTrend test team cycles through hundreds of vehicles a year, and an old pro like road test editor Chris Walton has been in and out of thousands of them during his career. So when he starts waxing poetic about a car like the 2022 Audi S8, you better believe we sit up and take notice."Wow. What a sleeper," Walton said of the S8 super sedan we recently had in for testing. "It's way too easy to find yourself driving 90 mph without noticing it. I could live with this car for the remainder of my life." That's a bold statement, Chris, do go on. "The whole thing kind of shrinks around you and makes it feel like an S6. Goodness, what an achievement this thing is."He's right, of course, about all the sleeping and shrinking 2022 S8 does. This particular car looks downright menacing, as well, thanks in large part to its Daytona Gray pearl paint scheme offset by a Black Optic Plus package ($2,100) that adds 21-inch, 10-spoke gloss black rims shod with summer tires, and other blacked-out elements including Audi's famed four-ring badge adorning (what else?) a bold black grille.There's also some menace in its exhaust note, a bombastic baritone that bellows out from its 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8, which produces 563 horsepower and 590 lb-ft of torque. The engine is paired with an eight-speed automatic transmission that proved smooth and quick under hard acceleration. It all works in concert to move the S8's significant 5,204-pound mass with authority.Audi S8 0-60 mph Time: Very ImpressiveGiven its prodigious poundage, the 2022 S8's 0-60-mph time of 3.7 seconds is darn impressive. Its Quattro all-wheel-drive system and attendant sport differential certainly don't hurt matters when you're firing it out of the starting block, and the S8 also has a launch control feature that further aids the cause.The test team reported some issues getting the S8 to launch right—but when it does, it launches hard. "Because the window of optimal boost and rpm is brief, and if you miss it you must wait a bit before trying launch control again. But when everything works, you get neck-snapping acceleration. Very harsh shifts from 1-2-3," road test analyst Alan Lau noted.Audi S8 Quarter-Mile Time: Low 12s Will Do After hammering past the 60-mph mark, the 2022 S8 barreled its way to a quarter-mile time of 12.2 seconds at 113.0 mphagain, a heck of a number for a car of its size and class. It's hard to find an apples-to-apples comparison to the 2022 S8 given its curb weight and configuration other than maybe the BMW Alpina B7 xDrive or the last-generation Mercedes S63 AMG, as most of the 2.5-ton machines we've tested in the past few years are either SUVs or EVs.Interestingly, one of the closest EVs we found to compare the S8 against is another Audi, the dual-motor E-Tron GT Prestige sedan, which weighs in at 5,095 pounds. That car hit 60 mph in 3.6 seconds and on to a quarter mile of 11.9 seconds at 118.8 mph. Of course, the E-Tron doesn't get the S8's twin-turbo terror of a V-8, but you won't have to pay a gas-guzzler tax or live with the S8's officious inefficiency, either (it's EPA rated at 14/23/17 mpg city/highway/combined). Different power strokes for different folks.Audi S8: Getting Its Oversteer OnAs for the rest of the 2022 Audi S8's overall abilities, once again, with the "for its weight" caveat out of the way, its stopping distance of 105 feet from 60 mph is as impressive as its acceleration. Lau reported the following: "The brake pedal feel seems to be tuned with a good balance between comfort and performance. It's not overly touchy and easy to modulate. When it comes to very aggressive braking, they get the job done very well." Walton added that the brakes were "tremendous and easy to modulate to just stay barely out of the ABS" during his testing.But it was out at our figure-eight (24.4 seconds at 0.79 g avg) and skidpad (0.95 g avg) tests where Walton truly fell in love with the S8 and its capabilities. "The way it turns in makes it feel so much smaller and lighter," he wrote in his notes. "The steering is a bit vague in feel but very precise. The car takes a very neutral attitude, just barely dancing on oversteer. The way it drives off the corner with the all-wheel drive (the S8 also comes standard with a four-wheel-steering system) is phenomenal."Comfort, Plus a Whole Lot MoreSo yes, the S8 does things cars of its size, heft, and weight distribution (55/45 percent front/rear) have no business doing from a performance standpoint. But when it comes to its other mission as a cosseting luxury limo, all play and no relaxation can make for a bone-jarring bad time. That's where the S8's Comfort+ setting and its optional predictive active suspension ($6,000) come in to help smooth the road ahead. As with other systems of its type, the predictive suspension uses a camera to read the oncoming surface, sense jarring impacts or other undulations, and react accordingly to soften the S8's ride.In addition to the fancy active footwork, the 2022 S8 has all manner of standard and optional luxury trappings (this particular S8's black interior, trimmed with carbon accents, looked stealthy chic), as well as safety systems and other craftsmanship befitting a car that starts at $118,995 and rang up at $135,595 as tested.It's a car you won't see many of to begin with and one that you can be assured won't be around for much longer in its present configuration. It's a special sport sedan for a chosen few. So if you happen to be in the Los Angeles area and see one blow past you, it could very well be a certain MT staffer at the wheel (if he robbed a bank or raided his 401(k) to get one, that is). Be sure to say hi—if you can catch him.Looks good! More details?2022 Audi S8 Specifications BASE PRICE $118,995 PRICE AS TESTED $135,595 VEHICLE LAYOUT Front-engine, AWD, 5-pass, 4-door sedan ENGINE 4.0L Twin-turbo direct-injected DOHC 32-valve 90-degree V-8 POWER (SAE NET) 563 hp @ 6,000 rpm TORQUE (SAE NET) 590 lb-ft @ 2,050 rpm TRANSMISSION 8-speed automatic CURB WEIGHT (F/R DIST) 5,204 lb (55/45%) WHEELBASE 123.2 in LENGTH x WIDTH x HEIGHT 209.5 x 76.6 x 58.5 in 0-60 MPH 3.7 sec QUARTER MILE 12.2 sec @ 113.0 mph BRAKING, 60-0 MPH 105 ft LATERAL ACCELERATION 0.95 g (avg) MT FIGURE EIGHT 24.4 sec @ 0.79 g (avg) EPA CITY/HWY/COMB FUEL ECON 14/23/17 mpg EPA RANGE, COMB 369 miles ON SALE Now Show All

No Acura today is electric, though a few are electrified—namely the NSX hybrid supercar, which is on its way out the door. It will most likely be replaced by an all-electric sports car in the future, but what might that car and every other electric Acura look like? The new Acura Precision EV concept SUV is the closest thing to a preview, at least until concepts previewing individual electric Acuras begin cropping up in the coming years.It Kinda, Sorta Previews the GM-Based Acura EV SUVWhile it'd be easy to jump to the conclusion that this Precision EV concept will become the promised electric Acura SUV that'll share its GM-sourced Ultium architecture with the forthcoming Honda Prologue, not so fast. Honda is known for showing "concepts" that are nearly production-ready examples of upcoming models; this isn't quite one of those direct snapshots. Inasmuch the Precision EV previews that model, it does so tangentially, just as it previews all future Acura EVs. Per the automaker, "The Acura Precision EV Concept is a design study that will shape the direction of future Acura products in the electrified era including our first all-electric SUV in 2024." What Acura is showing here instead is, in a nutshell, how it plans to tackle "the grille issue" that's common among established automakers attempting to adapt their current design languages to electric cars. For the past century or so, car designers have leveraged grille shapes, slats, and the like (along with other key components such as headlights) to create the literal faces of different car brands. Every car with an engine requires an opening somewhere to shovel air over and into said engine, after all. Electric cars, meanwhile, still need cooling airflow over components, but that air needn't enter explicitly through the vehicle's nose. A more closed-off schnoz, of course, aids range-conscious engineers in their quest for slipperier aerodynamics, while erasing a styling focal point from designers' arsenal.Acura Makes Light Work of the GrilleThe solution Acura's designers have come up with for that pesky grille issue? Lights! The Precision EV concept generally hews to Acura's current design theme, with slim headlights, clean surfacing, and a sporty stance—but where the pentagonal grille on today's Integra, MDX, RDX, and TLX lives there is… a pentagonal area. (Those vehicles, by the way, were all previewed by the last Precision concept from 2016.) This familiar outline is closed off, though—and rather than utilizing a black-plastic dummy grille like BMW employs on its iX SUV and i4 hatchback, Acura stuffs the Precision EV's pentagonal snoot with LEDs. Acura dubs it a "theatrical lighting approach" using "particle glitch" styled lighting.Essentially, color-shifting fragments form the general shape of Acura's diamond pentagonal grille, as well as the broad-strokes outlines of various internal-combustion-vehicle-standard addenda such as bumper intakes and other styling cues. It's an interesting way of delineating that this smooth-surfaced, squinty eyed SUV is, in fact, an Acura. After all, the overall profile of the vehicle is otherwise fairly standard stuff; heck, this could be the next-generation MDX family SUV, so conventional is its shape. The 23-inch wheels might be a stretch, though the eventual production Acura EV SUV does share its Ultium platform with GM, which offers its similarly sized products with fairly huge rims, so don't count those out.The RestAcura isn't talking much about the concept's powertrain—other than to say it is, theoretically, electric—but again, that's not really the point of this styling exercise. In keeping with the general theme of previewing the interactive and visual aspects of future Acuras, the automaker does outline two drive modes of sorts: Instinctive Drive and Spiritual Lounge. The former bathes the cabin with red ambient lighting, sportier instrumentation on the dashboard, and, presumably, primes the electric powertrain for maximum attack. The Spiritual Lounge deal aims for a calming vibe, delivering "soothing scents and restful 'under water' animated projection." The cabin is fanciful enough to support those mood-like modes, what with its steering yoke, floating central display, and copious ambient lighting. Overall the Precision EV concept's precise lighting blends well with Acura's athletic styling, which bodes well for the brand's evolution to an electrified future lineup. Unlike the steering yoke and translucent screens inside, the exterior lighting array looks vaguely production-feasible. Just takes some precision manufacturing, of course…

Everyone by now is familiar with the Radwood formula: Gather a bunch of 1980s and 1990s cars in one place, invite enthusiastic nostalgists who pine for those cars to a location local to them, and encourage attendees to dress in period-inspired outfits. Rinse, repeat. Our latest visit to a Radwood show, at Laguna Seca raceway in California, provided a welcome respite from the Monterey Car Weekend usual. You know, exotics, supercars, and eye-wateringly expensive classics mingling among the idle rich.That's great eye candy for sure, but all the revving V-12s and flashy new metal can be a little exhausting. If ever you could be reminded in real time, over and over again, that you're relatively poor, Monterey Car Week doles out such lessons incessantly. So Radwood and its motley collection of fellow car enthusiasts' more attainable rides—though there are some near-priceless vehicles that qualify for entrance—offer up a dose of pleasant reality. These cars are excellent, obscure, or survivors (sometimes all three), all representative of the '90s and '80s.We walked the show this year, which was hosted by Hagerty in the paddock of Laguna Seca, and snapped photos of some of the highlights for those of you who couldn't make it out to NorCal for the event.