The similarities between today’s Audi R8 and the Le Mans quattro concept shown at the 2003 Frankfurt show are startling. Both are powered by V10 motors derived from the Lamborghini Gallardo (though the concept was turbocharged), both use magneto-rheological damping and both even have all-LED lighting systems. But when R8 sales began in 2006, it was with a dry-sump version of the RS4’s V8 under the engine cover.
We will not be the first to observe that bigger is not necessarily better – that less is, indeed, very often more. Which is why we treated news of the arrival of a 518bhp 5.2-litre V10 motor in the engine bay of the Audi R8 with more than a little circumspection. We didn’t feel the V8-powered R8 was a sluggard, and feared most of all what the extra power and weight of the V10 would do to the R8’s exquisite balance. We needn’t have worried; the V10 puts a glorious engine (with a soundtrack to die for) into a glorious car. It works. And some.
It is right to ask questions about the price, though. True, once you pick all the options on a V8 R8 that are standard on the V10, the price differential more than halves, dropping by around £10,000, but that still prices the V10 at over a hundred grand. And if you get a little carried away with options you’re looking at a car that’ll cost another 10 grand again. Add carbon brakes and paddle-shift gears and there goes another 10 grand, too.
In truth, whether you end up with a V8 or a V10, coupé or spyder, you’re getting a beautifully balanced supercar that some thought was beyond Audi’s abilities. How wrong they were.
