After more than thirty years, Audi presses pause on its biggest sedan.

Ever since Skipp Sudduth asked for “Something very Fast. Audi S8. Something that can shove a little bit,” in 1998's Ronin, Audi's big body sedan has been the stuff of legend. Mercedes-Benz S-Class? Too obvious. BMW 7-Series? You don't want to look like a wannabe James Bond. But an Audi A8? That's what you drive when you have a nickname like The Transporter.

However, as appealing as the A8 is on-screen, it's not really been much of a mover in Audi showrooms of late. Almost nothing depreciates faster than a full-size German luxury sedan—you might as well invest in an ice sculpture—and both BMW and Mercedes have been outselling Audi in the segment. Thus, Audi has just pressed pause on production of the A8, with no immediate plans in place to reboot it.

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The Neckarsulm plant where the A8 was being built has already pivoted to production of the Audi A5 in both sedan and Avant forms, in standard and S5 or RS5 trims. Audi has been headquartered in Ingolstadt since the 1980s, long enough to have that city be shorthand for the company the way Stuttgart is for Porsche, but the Neckarsulm plant has roots stretching back to the nineteenth century via NSU, one of the companies that ended up forming Audi's four rings

2-liter V8 that still rates as one of the best-sounding engines ever made.

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