Audi R8 BATTLE: Can The Old R8 Beat The New One?! |4K

the R8 is officially dead Audi's Flagship sports car has now entered its Twilight years with no more to be built but for those who still want to enjoy the icon the legend one last time there is hope in the form of the first generation Audi R8 the facelifted successor and perhaps most impressively of all this one is the £200,000 R8 GT rear wheel drive a special edition 333 run example marking the end of a beautiful era alongside its screaming mid-mounted 5.2 L V10 Audi has blessed the GT with a motorsport inspired design more grip more downforce and fun factor to rival all but a few I do love this car the engine is a masterpiece 5.2 L V10 naturally aspirated how many many cars use this kind of engine I'm going to go with none apart from the Lamborghini hurricane this will Mak 620 horsepower 565 Newt M of torque and it pulls this one will do na to 62 in 3.4 seconds 199 mph just shy of the double ton and it sounds glorious all the way up wow it RS to 8700 RPM Masterpiece Masterpiece of course this particular car's party trick is that it doesn't use Audi Quadro it's completely reable drive but that means it definitely knows how to let its hair down it can send all his power to the back a bit like that this is an exceptionally play full car it's the kind of Audi that Audi don't usually build there's actually two ways to slide in this car One is using a torque rear mode which is kind of like a drift mode that allows you to dial in exactly how much angle you want in the middle of a corner and the other is just to switch it off completely and do your thing and either way this thing is a tire shredding monster this is a Bittersweet Crescendo but it won't come cheap the 200 Grand asking price is an astonishing 70 grand more than the standard V10 performance rear wheel drive R8 and that difference is more than the cost of a usar rate can anyone really justify watching all that money go up in smoke along with the tires to answer that question we need to rewind a few decades and take ourselves back to this car's Origins all the way back in 2006 Audi decided it wanted to mix things up into the world of sports cars with this the Mark 1 Audi R8 this car's mission was very simple Audi wanted a piece of the pie that belongs to the Porsche 911 and the Aston Martin Vantage and they were almost immediately successful within a week of this car being announced they sold out the entire first Year's allocation customers praise the R8 for its performance everyday usability and relative Comfort but perhaps most of all they praised it for its design it was named after Audi's all conquering leemon race car but the road-going version featured a design inspired by the Audi leemon concept of 2003 at that time the car seemed seemed almost too futuristic to be true but it quickly became a very compelling [Music] reality you might recognize this car this is the very Audi R8 that was featured on Top Gear at dunsfold Aerodrome driven by Jeremy Clarkson when the car was first released I can't think of a single other time this car has been featured on this track since that day and that makes this a pretty happy homecoming when the R8 first came out you could pick one up for £77,000 which worked out to be around $127,000 in today's money fast forward a few years though and you can pick up a used example on auto trader for around £25,000 that's about 15% of the price but it's not 15% of the performance that 4.2 L V8 knocked out 420 PS and could do 0 to 62 in just over 4 and 1 half seconds flat out 187 mph genuinely impressive performance more impressive than the straight line acceleration though was the handling these cars had Quattro four-wheel drive so in a straight line even in dodgy conditions like this they just took off but slightly out of character Audi had a bit of a sense of humor with the R8 so that meant that most of the power actually went to the rear wheels it had a almost reverse HCK system so 70% of torque went to the back and that meant it was quite playful very playful this manual gearbox is an absolute treat you listen to it Snick snacking up and down the box it's such a joy to use it's a real throwback salute the OG despite its Age The Mark 1 R8 still feels modern and even though this example is an incredibly well-looked after Heritage Car cared for by Audi itself it still feels almost new very well screwed down refined and fully capable of being used as a daily the only Clues to its age are its interior specifically the aging satnav and infotainment setup the engine meanwhile is still a peach with the only criticism being that by today's standards it might be slightly down on power but for that Audi had a solution shortly after releasing the V8 mark1 Audi went and stepped their game up with this the Mark 1 facelifted V10 still no turbos but those couple of extra cind cylinders help to raise the power to an astonishing at the time 570 horsepower if you want one of these v10s then it will set you back around £40,000 so a little bit more but it's a similar situation to the V8 if you can find a decent example then it just feels mint and it is just astonishing to drive if feels brand new this particular car as I go sideways through Hammerhead is the R8 V10 LMX and it's limited to just 99 examples this car was special because it was the first production car to feature laser headlights Audi developed laser lights to help them dominate in the world of leemon to help the drivers see at night and it's a great example of race technology filtering down into a road car let's be honest though the major selling point is this astonishing V10 engine which basically turned the R8 into a baby gado and it sounds the part too naturally the quality in this car is still present and correct it feels like a very modern car despite its age the only thing giving it away is the technology on the inside but the handling is still there just with a bit more power these things are built to be incredibly engaging to drive and that power combined with the Quattro all-wheel drive system means this middle child of an R8 might actually be the pick of the bunch when it comes to straight line performance despite its age and there's only one way to find out line all three cars up for a drag race and fire them down the track to see whether old really can hang with new 3 2 1 go good start by the mark one it's actually in the lead but now I am look at this and I'm beating the new car I'm actually pulling off both of them the middle V10 is an absolute animal and I'm winning this race by a considerable margin wow look at that nearly 160 mph over the line sometimes newer might not be better wow on a cold Winter's day the R8 GT rear wheel drive struggles to put its power down and even once on the Move despite having an 85ps advantage it simply can't catch up even the Quattro using V8 which gives away 190 PS isn't too far behind one area where the new and final Audi RX differ is in design the GT is a beast from any angle it might be the tame cousin of a Lamborghini Hurrican but it arguably out Lambos the lambo where looks are concerned it features a large front spitter and aggressive Arrow flicks for added downforce the sides feature lightweight Wheels wrapped in sticky rubber bigger side skirts and carbon side blades the rear has huge exhaust tips a sizable diffuser and a swan neck rear wing helping provide twice the downforce of the standard R8 so there are some aesthetic differences with the very last Audi R8 but you got to ask yourself is Audi doing enough are they giving a proper sendoff to this legendary car at first glance I think the answer is probably no I mean it uses essentially the same naturally aspirated 5.2 L V10 it doesn't make a load more power and a load more torque compared to what it did before and it sounds well it doesn't sound any better than the previous generation car where's the twin turbo where's the manual gearbox where's the Fanfare still you don't throw the baby out with the bath water do you there's a reason the R8 is so successful people love the recipe pretty much as it is the engine response is still absolutely phenomenal every time you go anywhere near that accelerated pedal it just wants to take off traction is a little bit of an issue especially in these conditions but when you're up and running that motor just sinks that gearbox despite being a twin clutch and not a manual is actually brilliant to use really engaging and allows you to shift up and down the Box with with Precision whenever you want on your terms they've tuned the Gearbox Software as well so now you get a quicker response and also a slightly different ratio which allows it to feel that little bit more urgent between third and seventh gear it's a joy to use I mean the clicking from the paddles is a bit na but it works a treat I've had the opportunity the pleasure of driving this final Audi R8 on track and on the road and I've got to say it's an absolute tree usable on a daily basis and when you get out here on a circuit an absolute animal an atom bomb of a car that just feels so engaging so rewarding no matter what you're doing in all circumstances and that surely is what you want from an Audi R8 and that is all we'll ever get from the Audi R8 it time has come with this Audi has ceased production sending off its legendary sports car not with a whimper and not necessarily with a bang but with dignity the speed engagement looks usability and Des desability you'd expect from an R8 are all fully intact and while we may never see another R8 at least not one quite like this we can at least take some solace in the fact that the Mark 1 in both V8 and V10 forms have firmly stood the test of time and are still to this day just as good as we remember if you can pick one up because right now at least those early cars represent an absolute bargain whichever you go for whichever you prefer I think most of us can agree that as the light Fades on the R8 this is a car that's left an indelible mark on the automotive [Music] world

Channel: AutoTrader

Views: 256,106

Keywords: audi r8, Audi R8 new vs old, audi r8 v8, audi r8 manual, audi r8 v10, audi r8 mk1 v10, audi r8 v8 vs v10, best r8, audi r8 vs, audi r8 gt rwd, audi r8 drag race, audi r8 exhaust, audi r8 sound, auto trader, Rory reid, top gear Audi r8, Carwow audi r8

Id: qYm5DrahdEY

Length: 14min 24sec (864 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 13 2024