Audi R8

The Audi R8 is a unique sport car. Very elegant and very prestigious. Maybe not as powerful as we would have expected, but it's ferocious look is very impressive. Personally i was very eager to have a go, as it looked very promising.

It comes in two different motor specifications one being the V8 and the V10.

Tech. Specs of the R8 V8;

The car has a very dynamic look. The V8 engine is 4.2L with 8 cylinders. It's a two seater (biplace) as the engine is directly mounted in the posterior middle of the longitudinal which separates the car in two. It's a 4 wheel drive (quattro permanent drive) permitting it to have an excellent advantage to 1/4 mile drag races. It was designed and modified to achieve the best of it's potential by Audi's quattro GmbH team. Like numerous German Sport vehicles it is very rich in aluminum, actually in the R8 the hole monocoque is aluminum. It is available at 2 types of transmissions; manual or automatic which includes a sub-transmissionary mechanism called sequential or also called semi-automatic. More and more often know technology has permitted the automatic gear shifters to be faster and more dynamic then manual cars, thus we see less and less of manual sport cars especially in the US. We can see this in New McLaren Mercedes SLR which is only available in automatic. The R8 V8 weighs relatively little, only 1560 kg, 60 kg less than the V10. Which permits the R8 to have a clear advantage due to its light weight and aerodynamic exterior. It's hand made like the significant amount of performant cars with a unsequential exterior, more than 50 workers add over 5,000 unique parts to it. The new racing carbon ceramic braking system also delivers shorter braking distances and is generally more efficient due to its wight saving.

The side blades are made of the same aluminum that the rest of the body. The need of increased air flow for the bigger engine is compensated & resolved by the bulging out the side scoops which are integrated in the lateral blades.

The V8 engine is supplied by a fuel tank of little over 75 litres. It has a cubic measure of over 4,100 cc. Which is equivalent too 309 kw and over 414 Horse power, four times the power of Smart Ultimate 112 Brabus, and only twice the weight (Smart Car weight; 749 kg). On the other hand the V10 engine has 100 more hpw then the V8, which is equivalent to 391 pound of torc, and a price difference of over 40,000 CHF. It has a 5.2 litre fuel combustine engine, just a litre over the V8. Thus much more performant than it's predecessor. It's acceleration to reach 62 mph (100 km/h) takes 3.9 sec with a top speed of 314 km/h and 301 km/h for the V8. The 3.9 sec acceleration is just after the Porsche Carrera Turbo with 3.4 sec and before the Audi S5 with 5,1 sec, which is the same for the Audi TTR. It is said to be equivalent in terms of performance as the 997 Porsche S. However the handling of the Porsche is much more troublesome to drive, thus we can neglect all the unexperienced drivers in this car.

In itself the V10 engine compared to the V8 in terms of acceleration has a 0.5 sec difference. To reach 200 km/h it takes a mere 12 sec. Which for the Smart Brabus Exclusive 112 would mean only around 110 km/h.

The engine has a accesory of luminescent light which adds a nice finish to its line at night.

Rumors persist that towards the first 3 months of 2010, Audi would have developed a new R8 Roadster open-top model called "Spyder". It's hand made like the significant amount of performant cars with non uniformal exteriors. It has a very distinct Germanic exterior styling. Like almost all rear or mid engine designed sports cars it utilizes wider wheels aswell as its tyres on it's rear axle which contribute to the strong grip the tires produce aswell as traction and stability. Furthermore in the terms of price of this car it costs in the round a bouts of 164,000 CHF (starting price), not as expensive as we would have expected, as it reached the performances of other more expensive cars. However we have other more powerful cars in terms of PSI and Bhp which are less expensive, but they do look less impressive and unique. An example is the Nissan GTR Sport which costs a little more than half of the R8. Its acceleration from rest to 100 km/h is of 3.3 sec beating the R8 by a bare 0.5 of a sec. In terms of Bhp it has over 480 which is significantly over the R8 specs.

The R8 is ofcourse a very luxurious and dynamic car. It is the dream of all young kids, as it is said to be both very easy to drive and very agile. The Hydraulic steering wheel is enhanced to permit the simplycity of drive neverthless not loosing any of its performance capacities, aswell as to be able to use under extreme high performance driving.

To see whether the very promising tech. specs adhered the R8's performances on the road, we gave it a test drive. We tested the V8, for over a day. It was more than enough to be able to see its performances. We also took a Audi S8 of a comrade of mine to be able to compare. Just sat into the Audi we can see the famous Audi interiors. The interior of the car has an excellent finish, with alcantara cuir covering its every edge. We can see from just barely making ourselves comfortable in the car how its pedals and the steering wheel are perfectly aligned with the driver's seat. All controls of the car aswell on the dashboard fall readily to hand including the gorgeous knurled Aluminum shift knob. All the surfaces are finished with aluminum or carbon fiber while the roof is finished in alcantra a aerodynamic frictionless surface. Acceleration wise the car shows an impressive 4,2 sec acceleration to 100 km/h. With it's 4 wheel drive we were able to feel the unique speed as well as control. Finally we wanted to test the car in all terms of specs so we took it on a spin to Rust, Germany where fortunately the speed way is unlimited in terms of speed. The car demonstrated with no doubt its ruthlessness and unforgiving agility in terms of drive at high speeds. The car we were driving had a V10 double exhaust pipe added to it which came of initial cost as 17 K $, with a modulator which increased its top speed by a little less than 10 km/h and slightly enhanced its performances. With this additional tuning we were technically able to reach speeds up to 310 km/h, though due to heavy traffic, and the alternation of speed limits due to heavy weather condition we were at 270 km/h tops. These are ofcourse high speeds but when having a look on the car you would expect something more.

To conclude I would say i found it a very nice sport car with a very beautiful line, really a toy must have for young bussiness man as it can be used on a daily basis for all sorts of drives.