Alright R8

A spaceship: that’s the best description offered of the impression the R8 made rumbling down the street towards the open-jawed observer, and I can see where they were coming from, The bright white bands of LED running lights, low and wide stance and contrasting sideblades certainly add a UFO-ness to the visual impact.

It was the looks and the performance of the chassis that were the highlights of my time with the Audi R8, courtesy of the friendly folks at Ecurie25. This car attracts the most amazing amount of attention – possibly even more than the Lamborghinis I have sampled from the same stable. Sure, the rarity factor has to be taken into account (judging by the number of mouthed “what is it?”s that I saw) but the amazing design – whether viewed from from front, side or back – has to take the bulk of the credit for the turned heads, pointed fingers, thumbs-ups and open mouthed gawping.


It certainly wasn’t the aural experience provided by the V8 amidships that attracted attention – outside there was a pleasant enough rumble, but inside it was simply very refined and well, quiet. Too quiet I think; there was no great excitement in firing it up, and nothing to whet one’s appetite for whatever sports car experience might follow. Audi have missed a trick here – the same powerplant in the RS4 sounds much more exciting, especially with the ’sport’ button pressed – more Vorsprung durch exhaust Technik needed methinks. The engine itself is a cracker, and delivers a hefty enough slug of power to ensure that the R8 never feels slow. When extended to the upper regions of it’s 8K rev band – which it is more than willing to do – it emits a much more pleasing deep-pitched wail overlain by the mechanical whine of finely meshed mechanicals, chains and belts.

It slows down very quickly as well, albeit without much finesse in the braking department. The stoppers seem too over-servoed and delivered next to no feedback, making modulation of the braking effort very difficult to get to grips with; the merest brush of the brake pedal brought into play massive retardation.

The gearbox was also a huge disappointment, this particular car being fitted with the Rtronic sequential shift. Now I’m not the greatest fan of any automatic or automated manual gearbox, but I was hoping this one might help change my opinion: no. No way – I couldn’t see any reason why this could be considered advantageous to a manual. Changes are effected either through the gear lever (forward to move up a gear, backwards to move down, to the right for neutral with reverse being right and back and the fully automatic mode to the far left) or the steering wheel mounted paddles. Annoyance number one was that it isn’t possible to select neutral via the paddles – the gear stick has to be used. This might be forgiven if the shift quality was good, but it was slow and sometimes seemed to have a mind of its own, even with the ’sport’ button pressed to purportedly swap cogs faster. My experiment with the automatic mode lasted all of 200 yards, as the gearbox seemed to think that I wanted to scream through town at maximum revs in 1st and 2nd since I had the Sport button engaged. For me the key benefit of the auto mode should be to take the strain out of changing gear when crawling through jams in town, not to help shout “look at me in me in my flash car”. And then there’s reverse: it has such a low gearing that it was difficult to move backwards at any significant speed, making manoeuvering a chore. Bizarre!

There are all the other usual annoyances of flappy paddle ‘boxes as well, including the nannying reminder and insistence that the brake pedal is pressed to select a gear from neutral (although it concedes that this may not be a good idea if you are already rolling!). The one area this implementation seems to have got right is in matching the revs on downshifts, although it does seem to insist on a flambouyant flourish of revs for low speed changes. If you’re looking at getting an R8 I’d suggest the manual gearbox option, and that’s from someone that hasn’t even driven one in this configuration!

All the other oily bits work exceptionally well and the R8 chassis is sublime, delivering more than enough poise and grip from the four wheel drive to provide confidence to attack corners. The ride is certainly firm, but no more than should be expected from a sports car, and the magnetic ride maintains control over all kinds of surfaces and cornering situations with no discernible attitude changes. The handling provided is the jewel in the R8’s crown – it really does seem to be a well sorted weapon for the twisties with a neutral to rear wheel biased feel to the setup. Steering is on the heavy side, but none the worse for it, and provides adequate feedback – not as good as some, but certainly a step forward from Audis of the past.

The interior maintains Audi’s reputation for providing classy design, fit and finish – it is a very pleasant place to be and the quality is a delight. Nice touches include the ‘arch’ around the instrument binnacle that starts at the driver’s door sill, extends through the door panel (providing the handles) and returns through the centre console having framed the instruments. It is a relatively austere environment, so don’t expect too much excitement. The seats whilst comfortable, are nothing exceptional, and the most damning comment came from the passenger seat: “it doesn’t feel like you are in a sports car – there is plenty of space and I’m not firmly gripped by the seat”. I’d like to see bucket seats similar to those in the RS4 as an option.

So, the burning question on every car magazine’s lips is: R8 or Porsche 911? Whilst many seem to want to pitch the Audi against the 997 C4S, I suspect a more relevant comparison is against the GT3. In that case which you choose will depend upon whether you want the out-of-this-world looks of the R8, otherwise I think the GT3 has to have it. But really I’d want a Gallardo for the sense of occasion it delivers. Perhaps an RS8 will get closer to the Lambo experience if it ever appears…