Background
You gotta love Audi. A marque steeped in history and replete with truly groundbreaking models… although Auto Union race cars aside, it never produced a super car. At least it didn’t, until 2006.
Cue the R8 – the right car, at the right time. Based on the Lamborghini Gallardo platform (the Italian company now sat under the same VW empire umbrella) the first generation of this groundbreaking mid-engine, all-wheel drive (Quattro, anyone?) beast was available with 4.2-litre V8 or 5.2-litre V10 engines, and suitably rapid performance.
And yet it remained as easy to drive as a simple TT. Just as Honda had done a generation earlier with its NSX, the German boys and girls had produced a truly useable (in every sense of the word) super car.
It had everything: wild looks, even wilder performance and a chassis that you could waltz in perfect harmony with. Oh, and a soft-top Spyder joined the party two years after launch.
Of course the range-topping V10 was the one to have, and in post 2012 facelift ‘Plus’ form the standard car’s 500bhp was upped by an altogether decent 50bhp.
Yes, the second generation Type 4S superseded it in 2015. This new player now shared a platform with the Lamborghini Huracan and further upped the performance stakes, but today it’s the first generation R8s that we believe offer the best value to enthusiasts.







