Audi To Introduce New S8 Plus, R8 And RS7 Performance To U.S. In L.A.

The Four Ring brand will bring a trio of high-performance cars to next week’s LA Auto Show for their first public appearance in the USA. These include the next generation of the R8 mid-engined sports coupe, the RS7 Performance Edition and the S8 Plus.

Billed as the fastest and most powerful Audi of all time, the new 2017 R8 will reach US dealers in spring of next year available with a 5.2-liter naturally-aspirated V10 in two flavors, with 540PS (533hp) for the standard model and 610PS (602hp) for the Plus edition. There’s still no word on which engine will replace the outgoing base R8’s V8, but it has been speculated that it could be a turbocharged V6.

By now, you must have figured out that luxury carmakers like Audi have no apparent intention of backing down on the horsepower wars, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they’re branching out, creating new sub-segments and sub-monikers for their high-performance editions.

The RS7 Performance and S8 Plus are two such editions, with both packing an improved 4.0-liter twin turbo V8 punching out 605PS (597hp) and 700Nm (516lb ft) of torque with an additional overboost function that sends the torque figure up to 750Nm (553lb ft).

Audi said that US pricing and specification details for all three cars will be made available at a later date.