RS is to Audi what AMG is to Mercedes and M is to BMW. This fortified version of the Q8, a new model in 2019, has little to do with any off-road bona fides. All the engineering that goes into the RS Q8 — and there is a ton of it — is designed to take a five-passenger SUV weighing approximately 2,200 kilograms and turn it into something approaching a sports car, one also with premium content and numerous posh touches inside. It also helps to know that the Q8, whether an RS or not, shares its version of the VW/Audi MSB platform not only the more family oriented Q7, but with the corporate SUV siblings Lamborghini Urus, Bentley Bentayga and Porsche Cayenne.

Take the already powerful twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8 — with a 48-volt belt/alternator/starter mild-hybrid system — as in the SQ8 and give it a bump to 591 hp for the RS. With 590 pound-feet of torque, there’s massive amounts of thrust on tap, enough that the big SUV can accelerate to 100 km/h in 3.8 seconds and top out at 250 km/h — or 305 km/h when equipped with the formidable RS ceramic brakes.

Power flows to the Quattro all-wheel-drive system via an eight-speed Tiptronic transmission. Wheel-selective torque control helps enhance handling by ensuring additional traction across each axle through individual wheel braking application. During what Audi likes to call “dynamic” cornering, the Quattro sport rear differential distributes torque between the rear wheels as required, helping improve traction and stability. Then there’s the standard all-wheel steering, which further enhanced the RS’s agility and stability, and adaptive air suspension with controlled damping — the electro-mechanical active roll stabilization minimizing body roll while cornering at speed.