If $47,000 landed in your lap to buy a car, do you know what vehicle you’d opt for? If you look at new cars, there are a handful of base trim pickups to choose from, not to mention a sea of well-optioned crossovers. On the sportier side, all the hot compact sedans and hatches – save for the Volkswagen Golf R and Acura Integra Type S – come in close to our “magic bag of cash” budget.Near the top of the hot hatch food chain sits the Honda Civic Type R, which offers one of the greatest experiences in a new car for the price. On the used market, at the same price as a new Civic Type R, you could find yourself a five-year-old luxury SUV with a V8 that sounds like rolling thunder from hell itself.A car we were very excited to announce was coming to America at the start of the decade was the Audi SQ8. It packs a twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V8 that makes a gloriously devilish noise when it fires up on a cold morning.Slotting between the already excellent Q8 and the wild ride that is the RS Q8 is the Goldilocks SQ8, which lets drivers tap into twin-turbo power without shaking all the fillings out of your teeth. It might leave some wanting the next trim higher, but after you get a taste, you might find this Audi is savory enough. For the price of a new Civic Type R, is this the next best thing to shortlist behind it? An SQ8 is… How Much? Audi A new 2026 SQ8 starts at $99,700 for the Premium Plus trim and $107,200 for the Prestige trim. Since that’s a little too far out of budget, let’s take a look at six-year-old examples. 2020 models are listed for an average price of $45,644 according to our price trends tool, which looks at all the listings available on our marketplace to generate statistics. At this price, a few other cool Audi models are up for grabs, too. The RS5 Sportback becomes available at this price, along with the S7, but if you need the space, the SQ5 and SQ7 are here as well.What makes the SQ8 compelling at this price is its roots, which are entangled with the Lamborghini Urus. Both share a twin-turbo V8, from which the Urus squeezed 657 horsepower in the now-departed Performante trim, and when parked really far away and right next to each other, you can’t tell the difference between the two.Inside, both have the same sight lines, too, which means no matter which car you’re sitting in, your view of the world is the same. Granted, the world is a bit blurrier as it whizzes past a bit faster in the Lamborghini. Is it Worth Civic Type R Money? HondaFor the oddly popular coupe crossover segment, the Q8 might be one of the best in every flavor it comes in. It doesn’t hop around at high speeds like the Porsche Cayenne, nor does it feel under-powered in base trims like the Mercedes-Benz GLE Coupe. But against the Civic Type R (an odd comparison, we know) it brings up the question surrounding the root of all poor decisions: money.When you pit the Civic directly against the Audi at $47,000, the question becomes clear: would you rather pay that money for a souped-up Honda Civic or Audi Q8? The choice is completely up to you, dear reader, and fortunately, neither will sack you with a worse experience depending on which set of keys you grab. They will certainly be different, but both perform how their boxes say they will. Their powertrains speak for themselves, but some translation is still needed to make a proper decision.The fact that an SUV with strong tethers to Lamborghini can be picked up for less than $50,000 is intriguing enough. And the fact that a Honda Civic is kissing $50k is, well, a byproduct of horrendous inflation. Normally, for the money, we’re discussing a choice between the best of one category, and the entry-point of a different class of vehicle. What we have here is one car that’s in its peak form, and another that is the sweet-spot in its lineup.The SQ8 is comfortable like the luxury-oriented base trims but not fully bred for shaking your spine out of your back like the RS Q8 will if you let it. The Civic is in Type R mode 100% of the time, even if you drive it like the hybrid version.Nicole Wakelin/CarBuzz/ValnetGranted, this entire argument is rooted in spending the same amount of money you would for a Type R on a six-year-old SQ8, but it makes you think about how much either is really worth. The Audi is all about what you get for the money and, to some extent, the Honda is all about what you don’t get, or what gets replaced with proper racing bits.The Audi is a high-speed highway killer that feels more like a private jet than anything else in Audi’s lineup. It still has decent street cred despite being a crossover, mainly because we recognize the SQ8’s value even when new, and that – for the money – it does everything you’d ask of the RS Q8. The SQ8 Delivers at this Price Point AudiFor the money, this two-row coupe variant of the SQ7 doesn’t offer up much in terms of practicality over its sibling, and the slightly lighter weight (5,214 lbs) doesn’t translate to any fuel savings or enormous increases in handling. It’s more expensive, makes the same power, and forces you to leave behind two people. Oh, and the infotainment is heavily screen-based and way too complicated.Honda But when it’s a cold morning and the Audi has been sitting for a few days, it bursts to life with a throaty roar and rumbles like Detroit muscle. Not bad for a small-displacement turbocharged V8. Actually, it’s excellent. It’s got a playful soul that’s eager to do everything from a blast down the highway to tackling a re-route over squiggly roads. It rolls like a boulder, but it’ll dance. And for the price of a Civic Type R, it’s a little more grown up, too.Honda The Civic has come a long way in just two generations here in the US. The 2017 Type R didn’t hide away from its back-alley racer looks, but the current generation pressed out the creases left by the previous model’s wrinkled clothes. But at $46,895 as the base price of a 2026 model, can you think of any other cars as impressive or engaging for the money? The Audi doesn’t check the boxes the Civic does in terms of being a thrilling, pint-sized performance commuter, and nor does it make any attempts to. Where the Audi feels the most at home is blasting at 80 mph down the interstate.It is, after all, a German-built muscle SUV that was tuned more for the Autobahn than the Nürburgring. It’s also the watered-down version of the full-fat RS Q8 which gives it its house-broken werewolf personality. Because it’s an SUV, it’s not the first choice among enthusiasts when it comes to Audi’s performance models, but it makes an excellent case for itself as an alternative to anything at the price point simply for the sound it produces and the intimidating presence it has in your driveway.Sources: Audi, Honda