The R8 was Audi’s first supercar – and might be its last. R8 production has already stopped and it won’t be replaced. After 18 years, two generations and countless special editions, this run-out V10 GT RWD (one of 333 cars worldwide, and only 15 allocated to the UK) is the end of the road.
I still remember the shockwaves generated by the first R8 back in 2006. We’d seen fast Audis before, of course, beginning with the rally-bred Quattro in 1980, but they tended to be capacious estates, plutocratic saloons or Golf-derived hot hatchbacks. A two-seat, mid-engined Audi to take on the Porsche 911? This was something new.
That original R8 had a 420hp 4.8-litre naturally aspirated V8, which drove all four wheels via an open-gate manual or R-Tronic single-clutch auto transmission. It accelerated to 62mph in 4.
6 seconds and topped out at 187mph. And it was a fabulous driver’s car: a credible rival for anything from Maranello or Sant’Agata, let alone Stuttgart. Some will tell you the R8 peaked right there and then.
But it didn’t feel that way when, in 2009, I got behind the wheel of a then-new 525hp R8 V10. The occasion was the SMMT Test Day, an industry driving event at Millbrook proving ground in Bedfordshire, where I was let loose on the Hill Route – a 2.3-mile loop designed to simulate a challenging mountain road.
It was my first experience of a fully paid-up supercar and it left me speechless. Unlike the track marshal who had stern words with me afterwards. The vor.
