Luxury Sedan

For years now, the Audi S8 has been one of our favorite cars. After all, can you name another full-size sedan that features a posh interior, brawny engine, a lightweight aluminum chassis and tenacious AWD grip? The Jaguar XJR comes close, but is rear-drive only. The BMW Alpina B7 xDrive claws at the road with all four tires, but the mostly steel monocoque makes it a fattie by comparison. Essentially, the S8 – now entering its third generation – is in a class of one.

But for some S8 owners, being the only car like it in its class isn’t enough, even when the prior generation S8 – known to Audi fans as the D3 generation – had an additional attribute that no direct rival had: A V10 engine, specifically a slightly detuned variant of the Lamborghini Gallardo’s powerplant. Fortunately, the well-rounded tuners at Anderson Germany have devised a suite of upgrades to make your Gen 2 S8 stand out from its peers.

The Internet has done many things to change the world, from putting seemingly limitless quantities of information at our fingertips, to taking video chat from science fiction to science fact, to making funny pictures of cats with poorly spelled captions touchstones of Western culture, to broadening the horizons of commerce. That last one is especially good for car enthusiasts, who are no longer limited to the likes of their local paper’s classifieds or the Recycler when shopping for a car.

We definitely harbor an appreciation for the vast dealership that is the World Wide Web, and we want to spread the gospel. How? By showing you folks what sort of awesome finds are out there waiting on sites like eBay Motors and Craigslist nationwide, of course. So to kick off this series, it would be fitting to start with something special right. And this is a special car that was built for special (and wealthy) people.

Most car geeks outside Japan will tell you that the fanciest, biggest-engined sedan Toyota makes is the Lexus LS. And it’s certainly a stately, full-size car in the mold of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, Jaguar XJ, Audi A8 or BMW 7 Series, available in standard- and long-wheelbase forms with a V8 or a V8 that’s boosted by a hybrid system to provide V12-ish performance. Make no mistake, the LS is a sweet ride.

However, those folks who assume that the LS is Toyota’s top four-door aren’t as in the know as they think they are. As it turns out, the most prestigious car made by the Japanese juggernaut is longer than even the extended wheelbase LS, powered by an engine that isn’t used by any other vehicle, and is only officially available on the home market. Its name? Century.

While the German luxury brands’ small and mid-size sedans are quite popular with tuners, the full-sizers don’t seem to get quite as much love. It could be a result of their lofty prices, or the substantial dimensions and weight relative to their smaller siblings. Whatever the case, with a few notable exceptions, the big Limousinen just aren’t that hot among serious performance tuners.

Fortunately, that hasn’t stopped INDEN-Design from giving the Mercedes-Benz S500 (known here as the S550) its special touch. They’ve gone over the whole car, giving it meaner looks and the performance to back it up. That might not sound much different from Mercedes-Benz’s house tuner AMG, but a closer look at the work of Joachim Inden and crew indicates it is indeed a slightly different recipe.