First Drive Review
Hardware matters, but often it’s the software that tells the hardware
how to operate that makes the difference. That’s true for smartphones
that tech websites tear down to reveal $40 worth of parts, but
increasingly also for cars—even the ones that don’t drive themselves around racetracks. The new Audi R8 is perhaps the greatest example of tuning through 1s and 0s.
There’s no question the hardware here is superb. The Audi is the Lamborghini Huracán’s
twin sister, and mechanically the two cars are as closely related as
any two GM J-bodies. They share the same engine, transmission, partially
carbon-fiber floor and bulkhead, chassis hard points, steering system,
and electronic architecture.
Meaning it’s the software that gives each
of those components a very different character in the two supercars. The
Audi is, as you would expect, dowdier and marginally less exciting, yet
on first acquaintance we suspect it is destined to be seen as the
higher achiever.
V-10 or V-10?
Buyers of this R8 will have far less choosing to do than before. The V-8
of the original has gone, along with the little-ticked option of the
manual transmission and its glorious, gated gear lever. We mourn the
passing of both, not least because it means the new car will be
considerably more expensive in base form than its predecessor, even if
far more powerful. A roadster version is a future certainty, and there
eventually will be a smaller, turbocharged engine.
For now, though, the decision is between the standard V10 coupe with
540 horsepower and the V10 Plus with 610 horses, both sharing the same
5.2-liter displacement and heady, 8700-rpm redline. There’s no official
word on pricing, but we’re told to anticipate both sticking close to the
market position of their predecessors. In other words, you can be
fairly certain that, without at least $170,000 to spend, there won’t be
an R8 for you.
Value always is a subjective call, but it’s hard not to feel
shortchanged by the styling, which is familiar to the point of being
almost identical to the first-gen R8’s.
To reference Darwinian selection, and to risk yet another crop of
threatening letters in green crayon and comments rendered in ALL CAPS,
the R8’s design has undergone about as much evolution as you would find
taking place in a small pond during a winter’s afternoon.
The styling is
edgier, the lines of the trapezoidal front grille sharper, but from
more than 20 yards away it still looks more like a facelift than a new
car (the telltale is that the “blade” behind the doors is now divided
into two). LED headlights will be standard, but according to Audi USA we
won’t be getting the snazzy, optional laser lights any time soon, and possibly not ever—such are the hurdles of getting them through federal certification.
The cabin tries harder and works better. The old R8 had started to feel short of both finesse and toys compared with newer rivals, and this one delivers both smart, functional design and quality materials. Like the new TT (and upcoming A4), the R8 features Audi’s “Virtual Cockpit,” a configurable screen behind the steering wheel.
This combines
instrumentation with everything that would normally be done by a central
display screen, and it can be switched among a conventional
speedometer-and-tachometer combo, a performance readout that includes
the seemingly mandatory g-meter, and Google satellite mapping that zooms
close enough to let you see if the neighbors sunbathe topless.
As we noted after being allowed a single lap of the Le Mans circuit in the car,
the R8’s steering wheel now contains most of its dynamic controls.
There’s a Drive Select button, cycling among Comfort, Auto, and Dynamic
modes, but there’s also a new Performance mode—standard on the Plus,
optional on the V10—that unlocks three additional settings via a wheel
button depicting a checkered flag.
These are Dry, Wet, and Snow—for
those who want to hoon their R8 when it’s 10 below. The other major
driving option is ratio-varying Dynamic Steering. This will be strictly
optional in the U.S., although the fact it was fitted to every single
car on the press drive in Portugal suggests that Audi is determined to
make us like it.
Familiar Favorite
Despite the almost countless man-years that Quattro GmbH’s engineers put
into the new R8, its starring attraction remains the part that has been
changed least, the V-10 engine. It’s worth the considerable price of
admission in its own right, a high-revving masterpiece that stands as a
glorious anachronism in a world where even Ferrari is downsizing and strapping on turbochargers.
As in the Lamborghini, it has gained both port and direct injection and
selective cylinder deactivation, but it is almost unchanged in
character.
Revs are what the V-10 does best, but it’s no anemic weakling at lower
rpm. There’s enough torque to keep it tractable when asked to trundle,
and it’s quiet and refined even at the sort of rapid highway cruising
speeds we hope the Portuguese Polícia will indulge a visiting
supercar in. In the hills, it takes a good while to build up to using
the full allocation of revs; even upshifting at 6500 rpm it feels
sports-car fast, with a good two grand still to go before reaching the
limiter.
Cross the 7000-rpm line and you’re in definite supercar
territory, the V-10 practically popping a can of spinach as it snarls
its way to redline. Under hard use it feels almost as exciting as the
Huracán, yet it’s equally adept when asked to be a well-mannered
boulevard cruiser or a polished autobahn-stormer.
Quote from: http://www.caranddriver.com/
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