Audi R8 First Drives

Refreshed Icon Is An Alpine Star When it comes to something as inherently outrageous as the supercar segment, you might think that it would never really need shaking up. But that's not the case – every once in a while, you have to have something that reorders the breed – a goalpost mover like the McLaren F1 or a Bugatti Veyron. Or you need to ...

A Supercar Without The Bad Attitude Regardless of the frequency, our pulse still races every time we fire up a ten-cylinder engine. It's not just the unique sound or the warbled vibration that gets the blood flowing – it's the anticipation. Whether the badge says Gallardo, Viper or M5, a V10 under the hood promises intoxicating power and frenzied ...

The Idiot's Guide To Driving Gorgeously Quick Chas Murphy, until recently the U.S. product manager for Audi's TT, R8 and RS sports cars, said of the R8 V10 Spyder: "You have to drive the car. It can't be put into words." Well, we drove it over the hills and through the woods of the Cleveland (Cali, not Ohio) National Forest, and we can put it into ...

On a gravel-strewn, dead-end road 20 miles north of Sonoma, California's Infineon Raceway, the opportunity finally presents itself. We slot the R8's gated shifter into first, rev the engine to 3,500 RPM and drop the clutch. No wheel spin, no screeching tires, just an immediate and seamless conversion of potential energy into vision-warping thrust. Our ...