The Audi A8 is a four-door, full-size, luxury sedan car manufactured and marketed by the German automaker Audi since 1994. Succeeding the Audi V8, the A8 has been offered with front wheel drive or permanent four-wheel drive, with multitronic or tiptronic automatic transmissions — and in short and long wheelbase variants. Previous generations employed the Volkswagen Group D platform with the current generation using the D4 platform. Beginning in 1997, The A8 was the first mass-market car with an aluminum chassis, marketed as the Audi Space Frame and co-developed with Alcoa.[2]