Well as of 2013 this car is more efficient than ever, so Audi S8 running costs are better than ever. If you’re particularly gentle with your right foot the S8 can achieve up to 29.4mpg and emits only 225g/km. When you consider it can sprint from 0-62mph in little over four seconds and boasts 513bhp that last figure is seriously impressive, and annual road tax isn’t that bad in the grand scheme of things.

Of course it costs near enough £80,000 to buy and we’d wager very few S8 models leave the showroom not laden down with extras – so running costs are not likely to feature very highly in many S8 buyer’s priorities.

There’s only one model so Audi S8 emissions are all the same with a figure of 225g/km. Considering the performance on offer that’s actually quite impressive, and the S8 can thank its clever Cylinder on Demand technology (where it shuts down four of its eight cylinders to save fuel and cut emissions) for such a number.

So far it seems Audi S8 reliability is almost perfect – certainly VOSA has issued zero recalls on the current generation Audi A8 or S8, and even the previous models had few and far between go wrong with them.

The engine is used in various other Audi products in different states of tune and there’s no apparent problems there. Same goes for the quattro four wheel drive system which Audi has been perfecting since 1980.