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Audi R8
The R8 takes its inspiration from the racer that won the Le Mans 24 Hours event five times
The R8 will do 187mph. It has all-wheel drive. It costs about £80,000 and is the first mid-engined sportscar built by Audi. The R8 is an homage to Audi motor sport, the 4.2litre V8 engine sitting a few inches behind the driver’s head, ready to howl away on demand.
This 420bhp powerplant is the heart of the car. Indeed, much of the engineering and technology derive from the track-going R8, Audi’s all-conquering racer that won the Le Mans 24 Hours race five times and the Sebring 24 Hours six times. While the all-wheel drive is the latest incarnation of Audi’s rally-bred 4 x 4 system.
The car looks far more menacing than its baby brother, the TT coupé. The R8 has huge, purposeful-looking wheels. Slashes in the sides not only suck air to the engine but add aggression to the looks. A powered spoiler at the back rises to maintain stability as speeds increase. Then there are the front lights, which use futuristic light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for a dramatic front end.
Made of aluminium, the chassis is light and stiff, which helps performance, as well as handling and road-holding. So as well as a top speed only autobahn drivers or track-day specialists will see, the R8 will go from a standstill to 62mph in 4.6sec, helped by all-wheel drive to maximise traction.
With such a rich motor-sport heritage and so much power, you might expect the R8 to be a handful in stop-start traffic or tootling through walking-pace rush-hour jams. Not a bit of it. Audi launched the R8 in Las Vegas, where crawling traffic is the norm. Away from the city, temptingly empty roads through the desert wilderness bristle with 25, 40 and 55mph speed limits. State Troopers await those driving recklessly, with the promise of a night in jail for serious speeders. Yet the car handles town jams and modest speed limits with ease.
Given its head at the Las Vegas Speedway race track, however, and the R8 shows what it is made of. The faster it goes, the more secure it feels, so confidence-inspiring that even modest driving skills are enough to drift the rear end out around the handling course.
And all the while, when worked in anger, that V8 engine is snorting and burbling, the electronic suspension adapting instantly to give maximum grip and ride control. The permanent all-wheel drive splits torque 35 per cent front and 65 per cent rear in normal driving conditions but varies constantly and automatically, sending up to 100 per cent of torque to the rear wheels, should conditions demand.
The car comes as a six-speed manual or as an automatic. The manual is slick and precise and there is even a Teflon nonstick lining to keep it that way. For the automatic, Audi has taken the Lamborghini Gallar-do’s box, reworked it and christened it the R-Tronic. Working the steering-wheel mounted paddles and with the Sport button pushed to harden the suspension, the car is in its element. Only in fully automatic does the transmission feel like the car’s weak point, with clun-ky gear shifts. Audi claims that the space behind the driver and passenger seats will take two golf bags, but a couple of coats and laptops are probably more like it. At the front under the bonnet is more luggage space for a couple of weekend bags.
Amazingly there is easily enough head and leg room for a driver who is close to 6ft 5in.
As for the competition, Audi will have to convince buyers that the R8 is a better bet than the Porsche 911 Carrera, which is almost as fast, cheaper (from £66,000) and with a badge on the nose with just as much motor-sport cachet. Or there is the 4.2litre supercharged Jaguar XKR, fractionally slower but again, at £67,495, cheaper, and the V8 Vantage from Aston Martin from £82,800.
Yet Audi has few worries about sales. It plans to build about 3,000 R8s a year, each one put together by hand. Even though the first R8s will not be seen in Britain until June, the 450 cars slated to arrive in 2007 are sold, as are the 750 for 2008 and most of the allocated 750 for 2009.
Specification
Car Audi R8 Quattro
Engine 4.2litre V8 producing 420bhp at 7,800rpm
Transmission Six-speed manual or automatic
Performance Top speed 187mph, 0-62mph in 4.6sec
Economy 19.3mpg comb
CO2 emissions 349g/km
Price Manual £76,725, automatic £81,925
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