Category: Exotic Sports 
Price Range: £79,825 to £99,580
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.
For a car of such sporting intent, the R8 is a fantastically quiet and comfortable cruiser. The ride quality is notably smooth on most surfaces and if you take up the £1,350 magnetic suspension option, even very rough roads appear to resurface themselves as they flow under the car. In all but the hardest use the engine is quiet - too quiet for my liking - and save a disappointing level of tyre noise on coarse coverings, the R8 will make a superb long distance weapon.
The driving position is terrific for drivers of all shapes and sizes and the instruments as clearly labelled and easy to read, as you'd expect from Audi. It's a shame then that the boot is smaller even than a Porsche 911's - which at least has rear seats to act as extra luggage space - let alone a front-engined car like the Aston Vantage. There is some room behind the R8's seats, but not much. In the cockpit the glovebox is small and opportunities for stowing more than a couple of cans of drink few and far between.
The bigger blot on this copybook concerns the view out. Cars built with aluminium chassis often have to have thick pillars to provide the necessary roll-over protection, and this one is no exception. The A-pillars notably restrict your peripheral vision, over-the-shoulder visibility is limited when parking and there's a massive blindspot between the interior and exterior mirrors more than capable of concealing a Renault Espace, let alone a scooter.
Equipment levels are adequate for the money but no more. If you want full leather upholstery Audi will leave you £2,500 poorer, while if you want navigation (which you will if you're ever to have a hope of selling it on, that's a further £1,800. Electric front seats will set you back a further £630 while even cruise control is a £215 option. Parking bleepers may seem like a waste of £630 until you realise just how difficult it is to see out of the back of an R8. It's no surprise, then to learn that the average UK customer is spending more than £10,000 over the list price loading the car with goodies.
