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| Road Test Audi R8 |
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Second Thoughts
Last time I wrote about the R8 I mentioned that I thought (as others do) that, while undoubtedly attractive, it also looks more restrained than it might do. I still think that, but nobody who lives within 40 miles of me seems to agree. The moment the car was delivered to my little rural community it brought the place to a standstill, and I'm not sure some of my neighbours will ever be the same again. Friends spoke of little else, people I had barely nodded to in the past held me in conversation for ten minutes or more, and complete strangers cast off all reserve in order to find out as much as they could about this otherworldly machine that had suddenly dropped into their lives. The most common question was, "How much does it cost?" and the reply - "more than £79,000 even if you took all the optional extras off it" - raised enough eyebrows. But then I had to admit that, with nappa leather upholstery, magnetic ride suspension, satellite navigation, an uprated sound system, parking sensors and (most impressive of all) a system for floodlighting the engine bay, along with as many non-standard items again, the car that they saw would actually cost £96,285 in an Audi dealership. In the cases where there were hairlines, eyebrows disappeared beyond them at this point.
It would have been £5200 more if the test car had had the semi-automatic R tronic gearbox rather than a conventional six-speed manual, and for most of the time I wished that had been the case. I was thoroughly ungentlemanly about the manual in my earlier report because I thought the gearchange was horrible; this time round, having driven a car with more miles on the clock, I have to say that the shift quality was much better, but I still don't like the way the lever clangs into the metal surround (which I admit looks wonderful) when you move it quickly. And sometimes you do want to move it quickly because that is also what you want the car to do. But it's also true that if you're driving an R8 every day you'll spend most of your time moving slowly, and that is one thing it can do very well indeed. I have always felt that a high-performance road car should be able to operate well in low-performance mode too, and the R8 certainly does that.
There's a Sport button near the gearlever which stiffens up the suspension, but on the roads round here it made every bump (and we're not short of bumps in these parts) feel like the result of landing on a pavement after falling out of a second-storey window. I would press that button every time I came near a race circuit, but for road use it's unnecessary and unwelcome. In standard mode the suspension - and do bear in mind I'm talking about a car fitted with magnetic ride dampers which adjust themselves according to driving circumstances - gives an incredible combination of ride comfort and handling ability. It would be paltering with the truth to suggest that the R8 feels like a limousine, but the ride quality really is quite remarkable. It's so good, in fact, that it can give entirely the wrong impression about how well the car can take the next corner. Something inside you refuses to believe that anything able to soak up tarmac imperfections so smoothly will be anything other than ordinary through the bends.
But this is the whole point about magnetic ride. Place the car firmly into that corner, apply the throttle hard, let the suddenly more capable suspension and the four-wheel drive system do what they're set up to do, and according to your previous experience of this sort of thing you will be either amazed or delighted (or perhaps terrified) by the way the R8 squats into position and fires itself down the next straight - sometimes with the help of the traction control if you've overdone things, always with a return to that soothing ride quality once the magnets have settled back to their former state. And if you think that sounds good, imagine tackling hundreds of corners of almost every imaginable type crammed into a 30-mile rollercoaster of a road. I did that twice, once in each direction, and the R8 was a joy whether the road was going uphill, or downhill, or sweeping round in a massive arc, or tying itself in knots, or even just giving itself a breather on a rare long, flat straight. However, it's the fact that the R8 can do all this and pootle along gently that makes it so special. The magnificent 4.2-litre V8 engine pulls from 1000rpm and is still going strong at eight times that speed, and in combination with the excellent suspension this means that you can choose any gear between, say, second and fifth for a given corner, depending on how you want to tackle it, and have equally satisfactory results. This, I think, is even more impressive than the outright performance.
Amazing as the R8 is, I wouldn't have one. The constant attention from passers-by got on my nerves, and I doubt that I could deal with it for more than a few days. Combined fuel economy on the low side of 20mpg and the highest possible insurance and CO2-based tax ratings wouldn't help either, though if you can afford anything from nearly £80,000 to £100,000-plus (according to specification) these matters will be mere trifles to you, even if they're not to me. But I'm glad the R8 exists, and I salute Audi for creating it. Price: £79,830
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