It’s hotter, faster, quicker, wilder, and it’s here — the most powerful production Audi ever. What happens when a compact everyday sports car is packed with 610 thoroughbreds? We live to tell you all you need to know.
Story: Jim Gorde
Photography: Sanjay Raikar
In space no one can hear you scream. But when you scream 137 times a second, time gets distorted and space doesn’t seem like an eternity. In the continuum of things, it works out to be an intoxicating song so seductive, the sirens would do well to mimic ostriches and bury their faces in the deepest trench Mariana could ever dig. Today’s day and age has had us say goodbye to a lot of things we’ve come to grow rather fond of. Gone are many multi-cylinder marvels that many of us have looked up to: engines so brilliant, they would shame a tenor, matching tone, while generating enough power to support several concert halls for hours. There are blowers and fans everywhere, and even the pinnacle of motor sport has not been spared. So while there are still a few good ones around that rely on the atmosphere to deliver what they need, it’s up to us to savour our last moments with these of a dying breed.
It’s easy to confuse intensity with Ingolstadt, if it was a city, when something as mind-numbingly quick exits from the factory gates, storming ahead of everything in sight. The new R8, in its proper next-generation avatar, has gone all-out to match its more expensive bullish cousin wearing designer Italian. So it’s all new, but what’s new exactly?
At first glance, there is the obvious addition of more sharp edges and fewer curves. It’s a swoopier design which also means its coefficient of drag has dropped to a claimed 0.36 (with the fixed spoiler; 0.34 with the active version retracted). The wider, bolder front grille looks more intimidating, especially in rear-view mirrors; more so with the piercing headlamps with LED eye-brows that make those ahead believe they’ve angered the car. The R8 trademark side blades are retained somewhat, but look like they scoop 50 litres of air per second more than the older car. Under the skin, too, there’s a lot different — primarily, the aluminium space frame that now has carbon-fibre sections in critical areas to reduce mass and improve strength and rigidity. There’s also a revised four-wheel drivetrain.
The engine, a familiar 5.2-litre naturally-aspirated V10, now gets the same state of tune as the Lamborghini Huracán: a full 610 PS and 560 Nm, together with cylinder deactivation and the combination of direct and indirect injection to take efficiency even higher. If that’s news to you, fuel is either injected into the cylinders directly or into the intake port, as deemed necessary by its several-bit electronic brain. The compression ratio has been altered to a slightly higher 12.7:1 (up by 0.2), which explains its slightly more aggressive and eager character. The quattro all-wheel drive now uses an electronically-controlled clutch and ditches the viscous coupling. That’s because now, even overseas, there are just two pedals to control the whole thing. The twin-clutch seven-speed S Tronic gearbox is standard fitment, and, it must be said, ensures every last one of those horses runs wild and free when the engine is screaming at 8,250 revs.
Alcantara. That was the first thing I saw when I entered. The headliner is entirely alcantara. That apart, the most inviting bit on the inside is the steering wheel, with its four buttons. The big red one on the right gets the party started, and the party piece is the small one on the left — Race mode! Get past that, and the new Virtual Cockpit is quite a piece of work. Speed, park assist, navigation, gauges, and that active digital tachometer are all enclosed in a space almost perfectly proportioned to the size of your attention span. The carbon-fibre inserts around the cabin, including the air-vent surrounds, look naked and unabashedly lightweight; no glossy coating there. The plus-spec sport bucket-seats adjust manually for slide and electronically for height. That’s it, no more. Get in position, and, once you get accustomed to its size, it’s time to move.
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