Category: Exotic Sports 
Price Range: £78,195 to £78,195
Purposeful, modern appearance, convincing performance, excellent ride/handling balance.
Not quite as involving as it should be, poor visibility, lack of storage space.
Audi has scored a direct hit on the supercar establishment with its first shot. Not perfect, but exceptionally capable and very, very desirable.
Can an Audi really be as good to drive as a Porsche 911? The short answer is 'no', the slightly longer one 'no, but it gets closer than you might ever imagine.'
Simply put, the R8 is a joy to put through its paces and so far and away the most dynamically capable Audi ever produced that further comparison is meaningless. It grips until you think your cheeks are going to ripple, resists rolling, heaving and pitching like a hydroplane in a light breeze and will not misbehave even if you turn all the safety systems off and treat it with unrealistic brutality.
All it lacks - and you'd say as much of the Aston Vantage - are those tiny nuances of feel that so distinguish the likes of the 911 and Cayman. This fractionally enhanced level of feedback may not sound like much but, in reality, it's the difference between directing the action and actually feeling part of it. In the R8 you are the director, in a 911 you're the above-title superstar. To most, this is likely to prove unimportant and maybe even irrelevant, but to the seriously appreciative enthusiast it spells the difference between a really good driver's car and a truly exceptional one.
Slotting a 420bhp engine into a car weighing barely more than a tonne and a half was always likely to produce dramatic results and the R8 does not disappoint.
It will hit 62mph in 4.6sec - so say 4.4sec to a British 60mph - while Audi has exempted the R8 from the 155mph speed restriction inflicted on all its other high-performance cars, meaning it will run unfettered all the way to 187mph. These are numbers not even the Porsche or Aston can approach.
But the R8 is better, even than this. The engine is a fabulous tool, pulling strongly from 3,500rpm to 8,250rpm and making a noise that would make you want to rip out the optional (£1,200) Bang & Olufsen stereo and leave it at the side of the road if only it were a little louder. But the manual gearbox, with its exposed gate, is better still. Not even Ferraris slice through their shifts as reliably and cleanly as this and were the clutch just a shade more progressive, the transmission would approach perfection. The R-tronic is capable of swapping the cogs swiftly and smoothly at the touch of a paddle, especially if you blip the throttle, but is less satisfactory if you leave it to make the changes itself. In sport mode it kicks down magnificently when you floor the throttle, but it tends to hold on to a low gear too long if you're in less of a rush; in normal mode it's too keen to change up to sixth as soon as possible.
Only the optional, and as yet unpriced, ceramic brakes on the test car were a disappointment. Not only were they overassisted, but they were also needlessly grabby in traffic, making you appear a mechanically unsympathetic amateur to your passenger. The standard steel brakes are still too light but much more progressive. Owners will probably be best served by sticking to the standard kit unless planning to use the car extensively on race tracks.
