Audi Q8 E-Tron Edition Dakar Arrives As A Very Expensive Special Edition

If you’re going to slap Dakar on a special edition, it needs to be pretty spectacular. Porsche set a pretty high bar for the nameplate with the 911 Dakar, and now Audi is having a crack at dipping into its rally raid heritage. Albeit, in quite a different manner.

This is the Audi Q8 E-Tron Edition Dakar, a tribute to the RS Q E-Tron the German manufacturer has competed in the famous rally with over the last two years. Rather than some bonafide hardcore off-roader though, changes to the electric SUV are quite limited.

Ride height has been raised by 31mm but not due to any drastic mechanical changes. Rather, it’s partly down to a recalibration of the air suspension software and the addition of a set of General Grabber AT3 all-terrain tyres.

Wheel arch extensions have been fitted to help cover the thicker rubber, but that’s about it for mechanical changes. There’s no additional underbody bracing or support, with wading depth limited to just 300mm. For context, that’s the exact same as a bog-standard Suzuki Jimny.

There’s no Skunkworks effort to put the RS Q E-Tron’s Dakar-spec powertrain into this Q8, or any performance changes for that matter. It’s not even based on the tri-motor SQ8 - rather, using the dual-motor, 402bhp from the 55. Granted, it’s not a small amount of paper, but this is a car weighing 2,650kg.

It does get a livery to loosely mimic that on the competition car though, albeit all black rather than using Audi Sport colours, and a roof rack. Oh, and a fairly hefty price tag. In Germany, it’ll cost €120,000 (approx. £105,000), making it about €30,000 more expensive than a 55 S-Line. Crikey.