Audi Q8 review

Refreshingly clean and simple. But still special, in a way we can't quite put our finger on and probably comes across like unwarranted praise. You get a good-sized steering wheel, five comfortable seats, plenty of useful stows and cubbies (particularly within the large centre tunnel), USB sockets front and rear for all your gadgets; it’s as practical as they come and features everything you need in a big family wagon.

The piano black wraparound dash – running from the front doors across the instrument panel – looks smart, but as we know from experience, likely to accumulate fingerprints over time and leave you exposed to biometric crime. So keep a cloth in the glovebox.

The seats are lovely and comfortable, and you get the choice of various finishes and colours, including tan brown if you're feeling brave.

It feels suitably upmarket, then?

Absolutely – the standout feature has to be the wide-screened, high-def, slick-graphic’d central display, consisting of a 10.1-inch upper screen, used for controlling the infotainment and navigation system, plus a secondary lower 8.6-inch display, used to manage the heating, air conditioning and comfort functions.

We've got a love-hate relationship with interior screens because most manufacturers overdo it and forget they need to be used while, y'know, driving. But even we have to admit Audi's is clever and useful, even down to the clicky haptic feedback on the touchscreens. It’s a little intimidating at first, and while we yearn for a bit more tactility, you soon get your head around divvying up the functions and relegating the stuff that you don’t use as much.

The only real negative is the position of the wireless charger under the central armrest, which we found resulted in our phone losing signal. Annoying when using CarPlay.

How much space is there?

There’s acres of space in the back and a decent boot (605 litres), though slimmed slightly by the beetle back (i.e. not hugely brilliant for dog owners). The rear seats split, too, so there’s every possibility that you can actually make use of the space to do practical things.

Shoutout to the electronic parcel shelf, which confused the hell out of us until we realised it extends and retracts automatically with the electronic bootlid. Someone get that thing on Penn & Teller's Fool Us immediately.

Yes, a blocky Q7 is bigger and has seven seats, but you don’t buy a Q8 for that – it’s just less of a compromise than you might first think. Oh and for reference, the Q8's boot is still bigger than a BMW X6's, though a little shy of the Mercedes GLE Coupe’s.