Last Drive in the Supercar

The Audi R8 is having a protracted goodbye. We’ve been anticipating an announcement of its departure for nearly a yr. Our final evaluate declared it “many of the solution to retirement.” And that was in December 2021.

Not that we wish to hurry it alongside—there’s already a harmful scarcity of naturally-aspirated thunder in our lives, and we’ve no want to see the R8 rumble off into the sundown. After all, if our needs dictated the automobile market, then you definately’d all be driving station wagons with 800 horsepower, and they might be brown. It doesn’t take any talent with stars or playing cards to know {that a} V-10 in a model that shares each its engine and chassis with the Lamborghini Huracán—which has formally introduced its retirement—is unlikely to have a future previous 2024.

We may curl up and cry about it, and certainly, a few of us have, however it appeared the easiest way to have fun the R8’s cannonade of combustion is to spend a while in a single.

Now, Automobile and Driver as a staff has been in nearly each R8, from the Le Mans prototype, earlier than the road-legal sports activities automobile existed, again when the racer was solely a three-time winner (it could go on to collect two extra) to the early fashions of the primary technology manufacturing automobile. Over greater than a decade of R8-ing, there have been some reoccurring ideas. From the get-go, the R8 struck us as extra purposeful than your run-of-the-mill mid-engine machine. Csaba Csere described a 2008 V-8 model as “roomy,” “racy,” and “helpful.” Ten years and a technology later, Eric Tingwall pronounced the 2017 V-10 Plus “sleek and complex … compliant and comfy.”

After I requested our present staff for Audi reminiscences, testing director Dave VanderWerp talked about it was the primary automobile he ever set a sub-three-minute lap time in at our annual Lightning Lap testing, and highlighted the R8’s twin nature. His different R8 recollection was of a highway journey by way of Napa along with his spouse. When requested which of these was the larger thrill, he correctly didn’t reply.

Highway check editor, Becca Hackett, was working in automotive fleet administration when the primary R8s got here to the States and had the unenviable job of holding her foot off the ground. “The automobiles would typically arrive straight from the port so we must unwrap them and put the primary 500 break-in miles on them. I spent a few weeks driving a number of R8s earlier than the automotive journalists even laid eyes on them.”

Affiliate information editor Caleb Miller goes to be jealous studying this. As a relative beginner within the C/D workplace, he has but to get behind the wheel of an R8, however he’s beloved them ever since he noticed Iron Man as a child. “I used to be obsessive about Iron Man, and by affiliation, the R8 turned one among my favourite supercars. It appeared so low and smooth, and I believe the affiliation with the badass, tech-king Tony Stark made it appear much more futuristic. But it surely additionally felt semi-attainable, in that I’d see one occasionally.”

We’re going to disregard that half about Miller seeing Iron Man in 2008 as a child as a result of it brings up an uncomfortable consciousness of the passage of time. Level is, the R8 has been an vital a part of Automobile and Driver’s collective consciousness, in order we put together for what could also be our final yr of R8 drives, we wish to do each justice.

I’m unsure beginning my time in a Suzuka Grey 2022 R8 Efficiency RWD Spyder by driving it to get a haircut throughout Friday afternoon rush hour was precisely doing justice to its 562-hp 5.2-liter V-10. Nonetheless, the truth that the R8 can chug alongside the freeway as easily as a Toyota Corolla, quietly mumbling to itself the place a lot of its friends could be straining on the reins and spitting hearth with each downshift, helps all of the claims of sensible-supercardom. “Don’t trouble blow-drying,” I informed my stylist, gesturing out the window. “Spyder.” It really works to dry hair too. Earlier critiques did not point out that.

The following day was higher. It began on Little Tujunga, a highway too small for the R8 to stretch its legs, however one with loads of canyon partitions to bounce the bass drum of the exhaust out over California’s San Fernando Valley. The return was broader and sooner, with tight turns to get only a contact of wiggle—the blessings of rear-wheel-drive—and large sweepers to stay and keep in it. The R8 doesn’t terrify with preliminary acceleration like a McLaren, and it isn’t small and saucy like a Lotus, it pulls ahead with the big-engine confidence of a draft horse. It’s extensive, stable, and sluggish to startle.

Later, on the freeway, I thought of how totally different the R8 is from its Lamborghini sibling. Altering lanes in a Huracán is an train in religion. There are aspect mirrors, however they have a tendency to vibrate so vigorously that one can’t inform if the reflection is an SUV or a distant mountain skipping like a biblical ram. It’s as much as the gods to clear the best way. The Audi mirrors replicate a bit of chunk of rear hip and two lanes on both aspect, all regular and prepared to your blinker. Parking is straightforward, too, which is shocking as a result of the R8 doesn’t have a nose-lift or a giant heart display screen to indicate a number of digital camera angles. Then once more, it additionally doesn’t have a jutting entrance spoiler or a large rear wing.

My final day within the R8 began at a System 1 viewing get together, the place the Audi appeared proper at house door-handle-to-door-handle with Ferraris, Lambos, and Porsches. Our automobile carried a heavy price ticket for an R8: $189,690, larded with a premium stereo, sport exhaust, and diamond-stitched leather-based. Even so, it is a cut price in comparison with its Ferrari 488 neighbor, and even its Huracán cousin. Its deep pink inside obtained approving nods, and it was straightforward to discover a prepared passenger for the post-race Malibu cruise. With the highest down and the warmth up—is there any higher mixture than a convertible with heated seats on a cool morning?—we set the modes to their loudest and stiffest and blurred the hillsides all the best way to the ocean.

The R8 remains to be a sports activities automobile, the seating place is low, and getting out and in is extra of a heave and a tumble than a red-carpet arrival, however the seats are gentle and adjustable whereas nonetheless trying sporty. It’s a roomy automobile, with house for bigger pilots and passengers however with no pillow requirement for these of us much less blessed with top. The Spyder lacks a few of the storage capability of the coupe, however a savvy packer may get a weekend’s price of junk within the frunk, and highway journey snacks within the hidden again console. Actually, what extra do you want? Possibly a couple of extra years of alternative to purchase a brand new one.