(EXPANDED 12/14/2022)
An Audi R8 in the wild is an eye-opening event. Everything about the car is over-amped, from the child-eating grille to the showy display of V10 power just beneath the rear window. The overall bearing of the car suggests that its designers believed that high-end sports cars were no longer about the long-cherished connection between driver, car and road.
Instead, your mission — should you choose to accept it — is to commandeer a veritable space ship that rockets into orbit “with as little ride disruption and mechanical commotion as an A4,” noted Car and Driver reviewer Barry Winfield (2007).
This is not to take away from the R8’s remarkable engineering. Here we have a mid-engined two-seater with a light-weight aluminum space frame, Quattro all-wheel drive and, beginning in 2009, a V10 engine that gets from 0 to 60 in 3.7 seconds (Austin, 2009).
Also see ‘Styling comparison: C8 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray versus the original’
As a point of comparison, time how long does it takes you to open your smart phone and type in a phone number. Do you need to move more quickly to keep up with this Audi?
Who is the R8 driver trying to impress?
The R8 is all about bragging rights. My car is faster, more aggressive looking and more technologically sophisticated than yours. The engine compartment even lights up so passersby can admire your junk.
That raises a question: Who is the R8 driver trying to impress? Is this intended to be a “panty dropper,” as a male heterosexual colleague once described to me his sports car? Or is this more about being the the king of the beasts?
What the R8 isn’t is a beautiful sports car. It doesn’t possess the sensual curves of a Jaguar XKE, nor the subtle surfaces of a De Tomaso Mangusta.
Also see ‘BMW’s 7 Series ‘Bangle butt’ helped legitimize weird styling’
In contrast, the R8 is technologically cold and calculating in its presence, with its carbon fiber insert behind each door and industrial-strength air vents below the taillights.
Don’t look here for stylistic nuance
Stylistic nuance was not a high priority for Audi designers. As a case in point, the door windows are unusually recessed at each C-pillar. This looks surprisingly awkward for a six-figure sports car . . . and presumably doesn’t help aerodynamics.
When the R8 was introduced in 2007, Car and Driver described it as more “versatile” than the “more-or-less relentlessly severe” Lamborghini Gallardo (Winfield, 2007). I suppose that’s a neat hat trick given that the R8 shares many components with the Gallardo, another in the Volkswagen Group’s overstuffed line of exotic cars.
Also see ‘Should VW’s design chief fear civilization’s end?’
Yet in the end, the R8 isn’t all that different from its “Italian” sibling. Neither has a cheerful, welcoming demeanor. Neither will likely be pointed to as a work of art by future auto historians. Despite all of the interesting technology, what we have here is little more than a brute exercise in dominance signaling.
NOTES:
This story was originally posted June 1, 2015, and slightly expanded on Nov. 1, 2019 and Dec. 14, 2022.
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RE:SOURCES
- Austin, Michael; 2009. “2010 Audi R8 5.2 V10 FSI Quattro.” Car and Driver. Posted May; accessed June 1, 2015.
- Winfield, Barry; 2007. “2008 Audi R8.” Car and Driver. Posted April; accessed June 1, 2015.
Car design has ceased to be about harmony or unity. The overt aggression of most new car and truck “styling” comes from a generation of designers who seem to want each vehicle to incorporate some sort of superhero element. In some ways, that is no different than the Buck Rogers-inspired finned fancies of the 1950s. There will be a change in direction and it may already be happening, we just can’t see it because of all the massive, wind-sucking grills and side vents that are in our way.
I believe the R8 was built by Audi simply because they could build it. I think the styling is harmonious and austere, but in a Teutonic way, thoroughly efficient. I like it much more than many other super cars, but that’s only my opinion.