Flenn. Posted April 2, 2019 Posted April 2, 2019 (edited) If you’re a massive Top Gear nerd, you might have already spotted this is a special Audi R8. It’s a 2007 R8 4.2 V8 FSI manual. The quintessential original R8. And OY07 MHL is the very car you saw on the television, 12 whole years ago, being power tested by one Jeremy Clarkson, in a terrible cream blazer. Okay, it narrowly lost a drag race to the Porsche 911 Carrera S, but you’ve rarely seen a machine go to the Top Gear test track and leave with higher praise. Fast-forward to 2019 - 53,000 miles later - and Audi UK has tracked down and bought back this celebrity R8. The workshop’s mildly restored it, undoing the tasteless cosmetic mods wreaked upon it by its previous owner and fitting a fresh set of unkerbed wheels. Inside, there’s some patina – the plastic has worn on the steering wheel around the volume knob, the leather seats are shinier than Donald Trump’s suits, and the bolsters sag like his jowels. But there are no squeaks or rattles. The FM radio doesn’t crackle. The air con blows cold, the bum warmers are fiery and beneath a scratched-up alloy gearknob lies the first R8’s defining party piece: the open-gate manual, as precise and purposeful as the day it left the factory for a hard life of impressing journalists. Let’s see if it can pull that off again today, with some awkward company. Yes, we’ve brought along the new Audi R8. Over a decade since Audi first went after the Porsche 911 and Aston Martin Vantage with a mid-engined, four-wheel drive two-seater, the brief for its flagship is still the same: be a user-friendly, angry-looking everyday supercar. It’s just the ingredients – and numbers – have grown up a lot. A V10 engine with 200bhp more than the original’s RS4-derived V8. An unflappable flappy-paddle gearbox. Driving modes for every mood or weather. And a price, for this R8 V10 Performance, of almost £170,000 as tested with its carbon fibre and Bang & Olufsen garnish. Even stripped back to base spec, it’s twice the money the old R8 V8 asked when new. Instead of chasing humble Carreras, this one gobbles up 911 Turbos and harries turbo’d McLarens. Course, you could argue the big numbers, bigger speeds and massive temptation to extend that spectacular V10 and hope you’re not in the eyeline – or earshot – of any local law or dash-cam vigilante isn’t progress. It’s just asking for trouble. On paper, the new R8’s a much faster, cleverer car for all occasions. But when you just jump in and go, what you notice isn’t the quantity of punch on tap, but how easy the box-fresh car makes everything for you. Automatic handbrake peels off, gears shift seamlessly without so much as a tap on the horribly cheap plastic paddles, and you know there are multiple sensors and a high-def camera to save any parking bump blushes. Wonder how many of the lessons the VW Group learnt making various Bugattis and Lamborghinis so freakishly useable have drip-dropped down into cars like this. Mind you, the original R8 was hardly a four-wheeled Justin Bieber, all bratty and disobedient. The visibility is sensational for a mid-engined car. The driving position’s pretty sorted – it’d be nice to sit a bit lower, but you could say the same of the new car. It starts with a quaint twist of a key, and having let the fine needles sweep around the dial, settles into a whispering idle once the oil’s warm. Watch the temperature gauges settle on the handsome dials – remember when Audis had actual clockfaces, not a giant virtual cockpit screen? Edited April 3, 2019 by -Dark* Closed
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