Audi R8 V10 Plus 2013 Review - International

Audi R8 V8, V10 Spyder and V10 Plus

We liked:
>> Crushingly fast – everywhere
>> Terrific new double-clutch gearbox
>> All-round grip and handling

Not so much:
>> Seems not to crash well
>> Firmer ride than standard
>> Minimal visual differences for a facelift

OVERVIEW
>> Still brilliantly fast, now smoother
It was always a fast car, but now Audi's R8 is smoother too – and faster still.

An all-new transmission for the R8 mimics the best of the dual-clutch transmissions in Audi's broader passenger car range. While the R8 will keep its six-speed manual on the books for the diehards, the seven-speed S Tronic (as DSG translates to in Audi Speak) is not only smoother, but faster and more economical as well. And more expensive.

Audi’s Quattro division, responsible for all the RS models and the R8, decided to keep the new gearbox out of the clutches of daughter company, Lamborghini, – even though the Gallardo V10 donates much of the R8’s core hardware.

And there’s a new king of the castle in the R8 range. Technically, that title fell to the R8 GT, but now that its production run is over, the R8 V10 Plus wears the crown. It gains more power, saves 50kg of weight and it’s very, very quick, with a 3.5-second sprint to 100km/h and a 319km/h top speed.

Oh, and to give it some visual punch, the low-nosed R8 now gets full LED lights and has a very cool party trick with its rear indicators. They start with half of the horizontal strip of 30 LEDs lit up, then light up the rest sequentially at 150 millisecond intervals. It’s very, very quirky and, from behind, looks fantastic.

In its German homeland, the V8 hits the scales at €113,500 and for another €11,300 they’ll take the roof off it for you. The two extra cylinders of the V10 coupe cost roughly €20,000 each in Germany, while the V10 Plus asks for an astonishing €65,000 more than the base V8’s price tag. Or, to put it another way, half as much again.

Given that the R8 Spyder V8 – the newest addition to the R8 fleet in Australia – arrived at $300,400 at the start of this year, don’t expect too much of a jump up in price for the manual ‘boxes. Even with that car, though, Audi charged $16,000 for an automatic gearbox of lesser technology and ability than this new unit. The good news is that the S Tronic ‘box is standard across the V10 range, including the Spyder.

The car is a few months away from Australia, so Audi is likely to try to get close to its current pricing while allowing itself some wriggle room for anything unforeseen.

Even though there’s not a lot of countryside inside the R8’s cabin, there is still plenty of equipment stuffed into it. The V8 family rides on 18-inch wheels and tyres, while the V10s can be spotted easily on their larger 19s.

There are, of course, options. One piece of seeming repeat business for Audi is the optional carbon fibre front splitter, though it’s only optional on the V8 (it’s standard on the V10). The V10s all have carbon-fibre (CFRP, technically) as the core material for the intake-covering “Sideblades” and they also see service around the rear-vision mirrors.

Of course, the stock V10s score a terrific Bang & Olufsen sound system, navigation, climate-controlled air conditioning and powered, heated seats. A good slice of the Plus’s weight saving comes from its carbon-shelled seats and part of that package is old-school manual operation.

The range starts with the stock V8, which has been fiddled for an extra 7kW and is now up to 316kW out of its 4.2-litre capacity. The core of this engine has had work experience in the RS5 as well, but it’s a much stronger thing here. It runs the same 430Nm of torque as the engine it replaces (and still delivers it from 4500 revs to 6000), but attains the extra power by spinning to a power peak of 7900rpm instead of 7800. It keeps wheeling past there, too, before the limiter cuts it off at 8250, so it makes like a proper sports car engine.

The V10 is a proper and proven sports car engine, too. The core of this powerplant has done its time in the Gallardo as well as the R8 and even, in twin-turbo form, the RS6. It has an identical bore and stroke measurement to the V8, which helps in production and means Audi dealers have to carry less engine-bit inventory, too.

The stock V10 is unchanged from the old model, with 386kW of power at 8000rpm and 530Nm of torque at 6500, but the Plus gets, well, more. It starts with an extra 10Nm of torque at 6500rpm, which translates to an 18kW boost to 404kW by the time the tacho needle hits 8000. That’s not the end of it, either, because the V10 will continue screaming until the electronic rev limiter cuts in for its own protection at 8700rpm.

They’re full of lovely stuff, too, including things like a forged crankshaft, forged conrods and forged aluminium pistons, and they spin as hard as they do even though the engine is hugely undersquare. This all rests in an ultra light-weight magnesium engine frame that is a stressed part of the chassis and all of its oil, power steering and alternator drives run off the back of the engine. Which is sort of the front. Anyway, it’s off the bit closest to the cabin in the mid-engined layout.

But the engines are only a bit fiddled and the big news is the gearbox. The seven speeder is a three-shaft design that’s only 60cm long and hangs out the back of the engine (so it’s almost the first thing destroyed if someone hits you from behind). It’s a dual-clutch setup, with gears 1, 3, 5 and 7 on one clutch and the rest on the other. Gears on both shafts are constantly hooked up and spinning, but only one clutch at a time is engaged. More expensive to produce than the six-speed manual (no surprises there), the seven-speed unit will naturally cost more. But it has launch control, which helps it to cut 0.3 seconds off the 0-100km/h sprint and the gearbox saves fuel, too, even though it’s 25kg heavier than the three-pedal unit.

The weights are little changed, with Audi claiming 1635kg for the V8. That’s heavier than Audi Australia’s 1560kg claim for the current car, but only by the 75kg demanded by European standards to account for a driver and 10 litres of fuel. It’s the same across the range, with the exception of the Plus – 1645kg in manual form translates to 1570kg locally, or 1595kg for the S Tronic version.

With seventh gear used as an overdrive for fuel economy (and quietness at highway speeds), the S Tronic box actually stretches to the R8's top speed in sixth gear. Unchanged is the viscous-coupling centre diff to spread the torque for the all-wheel drive system, which usually funnels just 15 percent of the drive to the front wheels (though it can pump that to 30 percent when it needs to). There is a mechanical limited slip diff at the back, too, just in case all-wheel drive isn’t enough traction.

There are double-wishbones all round and Audi has not bothered the R8 with the electric power steering systems that soaked up so much of Porsche’s engineering resource in the new 911’s development. Instead, it stuck with power-assisted rack-and-pinion technology, complete with a 16.3:1 ratio.

Underneath, the V8 versions ride on 18-inch wheels, with 235/45 R18s up front and 285/35 R18s at the back, while the V10s all move up a wheel size at both ends and down an aspect ratio, using 235/35 R19 front tyres and 295/35 R19s at the back. Tyre pressure monitoring is standard as is anti-lock braking and an electronic stability control system that can be enabled, flicked up a level for Sport (Audi claims it delivers “safe oversteer”) or off altogether for track work.

The suspension work is done by fixed rate dampers at the bottom of the range with the V8 coupe, upgraded to continuously adaptive magnetic dampers for the V10 (also optional for the V8) and back to a fixed-rate damping system again on the V10 Plus.

The anchors are truly impressive, with Audi adopting the RS5’s wave-cut discs for the V8. These started life in motorcycles and save about 2kg, and Audi clamps them with eight-piston calipers up front and four-piston units at the back. Standard V10 Coupe buyers will pay extra for the V10 Plus’s carbon ceramic brakes. They not only save 12kg, but are more powerful and fade resistant, needing a stiffer six-piston brake caliper up front and a four-piston unit at the rear.

PACKAGING

The boot space is good enough to stuff the largest acceptable carry-on trolley bag, a computer bag and a couple of jackets inside it, which is more than enough for this kind of car.

Thankfully, it’s bigger inside than its 1252mm high roofline would lead you to believe. Most people seem to have no issues getting in or out and there’s more legroom and headroom than you’d think possible. There are also a few receptacles around the place to store things, including a pair of useful door pockets and a glovebox that could, at a pinch, manage to safely store an actual glove. Some of the potential space is sucked up by the retention of an old-school lever handbrake, too.

One strange piece of packaging is that the V8 gets a 75-litre fuel tank while the V10 gets a 90-litre tank and the V10 Plus drops back to a 75-litre tank, presumably for weight reasons. For a small consideration, Audi will bump the little ‘uns back up to big ‘uns.

SAFETY

It has that in spades, with the gearbox out the back, the engine in front of it and 57 percent of the weight over the rear axle.

The tyre footprint is huge, the brakes are phenomenally strong and the skid-control unit keeps things in line. Mostly.

One Ukrainian journalist on our launch stuffed a V10 Plus into an earth bank on a second-gear corner in the mountains. He walked away unharmed – indeed, he helped himself to a few calming vinos later that night – though the car suffered significant damage.

COMPETITORS

The R8 launched originally as a V8 only – indeed they insisted they would never put a V10 in it at the time – and it immediately became clear who it was after.

Porsche’s 911 family has been both the benchmark and default sports car the world over since time immemorial, and Audi decided it wanted a slice of that pie.

Porsche might be in the family now, but that hasn’t stopped the brewing of an intense rivalry between Quattro, in particular, and Porsche. The R8 V8 has been designed almost purely to defeat the 911 in every benchmark. But even Porsche doesn’t have that market to itself anymore and cars like Aston Martin’s Vantage V8 are also in the mix, along with the very best BMW’s M6 and Benz’s SL63 AMG have to offer.

The R8’s V10 variants reach up into the world of Ferrari and Lamborghini, on sheer ability, if not price.

ON THE ROAD

Yes, we drove all three versions. Not one of them was slow. For starters, the little V8 is not so little and most folk would regard 316kW as plenty, ta muchly. And it is.

On its optional magnetic dampers, it also rides a treat. These things can be tweaked from Normal to a harder Sport mode (and, conspicuously, the traditional Comfort mode is nowhere to be seen). It also has another Sport mode, this one to open up the short-cut flaps in the exhaust to create more noise, jump across to a tauter throttle map and make the S Tronic shift a bit snappier and blip the throttle hard on down shifts.

The engine isn’t particularly loud on start up, but it’s wonderfully smooth and it’s quite rich in the sound it does give you. The long-stroke Audi vee motors are noted for giving their best sound after they’ve warmed up and the new ones are no different. It’s actually a bit of a sweety of a car, but don’t tell it that, because Audi wants it to put out a bad-boy attitude.

The engine is so flexible that it’s at home being tootled in traffic or being flogged in the mountains. It’s comfortable and effective at 2000rpm and it’s urgent and indulgent at 8000rpm. And it never, ever delivers you a single vibration you don’t want. It’s a smooth, velvety engine in the RS5, but it’s like Audi’s been on a zing hunt with it for its R8 role, because to sit through a full blat of its engine range is like sitting through an opera singer practicing scales.

It’s not as masculine or overwhelming in its engine note as the V10 (and nowhere near the hair-raising, dominant force the Gallardo V10 is), but it’s a fabulous little unit. While it accelerates hard and feels every bit the 4.3-second sprinter, it’s the flexibility and poise that reels you in and charms you.

But what gets you the most is the utter effectiveness and sheer invisibility of the S Tronic seven speeder. There aren’t shift points, there aren’t engagements and there aren’t blips. There is just a series of changes in engine note as the car gets faster and then you’re in seventh gear. It’s really that good.

And it's not just the gearbox that's highly refined; the car delivers a ride that is equally smooth. The lighter engine (at 216kg, the V8 is 42kg lighter than the V10) means it has softer suspension than the big brother.

It’s not just that it’s a comfortable ride, either, but it helps. The worst that Italy’s roads could throw at it failed to cause a single upset inside its cabin, beautifully put together in diamond-stitched leather and comfortable to the point of ridiculous.

This is, after all, a sports car. A mid-engined sports car, at that. It’s not supposed to ride beautifully. It’s supposed to handle beautifully. It almost does.

The V8 pushes you quickly into corners but the brakes cancel all that work out in a hurry. They carry that odd-looking wave pattern around the outer edge of the disc, like a lot of sports bikes do to save weight, but eight pistons in the caliper are more than enough to smash its nose down towards the tarmac. It’s not just the power of the brakes, but the stability of the chassis under extreme braking that’s every bit as impressive.

But then comes the slight disappointment of the steering. They might have targeted the 911, but the front end’s feel coming into a corner as it nibbles away towards the apex or chomps its way out the other side, is nothing like the feedback the Porsche can offer.

The lack of feel is one thing – you can live with it – but the bigger issue is just how slow the steering is. It isn’t by accident, because Audi knows these things punch down the autobahn regularly and slow steering equals easy high-speed stability, but it’s a compromise that will bite everywhere else in the world. You regularly arrive at slow bends in the mountains and turn the wheel. Then turn it a little more. Then turn it even more again. It’s the steering’s slovenliness that takes a potentially brilliant chassis package and turns it into an almost-brilliant chassis package.

But it works on other levels, because when you drive along in its normal mode, it’s quiet enough to drive every day, and for a long way every day, and it’s certainly comfortable enough. For a car this fast, it’s probably economical enough to be an every day car, too, especially with the 12.4 litres/100km the S Tronic box delivers (the manual, at 14.2 litres/100km, is considerably thirstier).

The charming invisibility of the S Tronic transmission feels right at home inside the V10 Spyder as well. In fact, mate it to the adaptive suspension and stupendous mid-range grunt and it turns a car – that is a hard-edged convertible as a Lamborghini  – into a superb tourer with genuine, hard-core cornering abilities lying millimetres beneath the surface.

It’s a neat 100kg heavier than the V10 coupe and runs a slightly softer suspension than the hardtop, too. It won’t be the biggest selling R8 version in Australia, but those that hook into it deserve to enjoy it. It is the softest machine in the family (well, the R8 V8 Spyder probably is), but it’s a terrific piece of work.

The roof folds down in an even 19 seconds at up to 50km/h, the electric seats are low in the chassis and the swiftness and slickness of the gearshift could trick you into believing it was a standard hydraulic auto. But better. The ride quality, too, tricks you into thinking you’re in a comfy style of convertible, but there’s an astonishing rigidity beneath it all. Point it hard at any kind of corner and you quickly see it’s not all about cruising between cafes.

You only have to snap the throttle to understand it’s a bit different. It lacks the chirping opening of the throttle bodies you get in Lamborghinis, because Audi prefers the dignity of opening them silently and letting the direct injection get on with the job.

And then, 3.8 seconds after you’ve opened the taps, you’re breaking the speed limit. Fortunately, the all-wheel drive’s poise means you won’t be arrested for hooning because there won’t be any obvious wheelspin. It brakes almost as hard as the lighter V8, bites into corners with almost the same hunger when you turn in and punches out, if anything, even harder. It still has the same slight handicap of the slow steering rate, but it feels more suited to this style of car than it does in the V8.

The heavy hitter, though, is obviously the V10 Plus. And it shows. In fact, it does nothing to hide it. The seats are instantly more aggressive, biting your hips and legs harder and providing tremendous support for the shoulders, too. Curiously, they feel as though they sit higher than the electric seats in the base cars, despite manual adjustment, which should demand less space beneath the seat.

Other than that, though, the interior doesn’t lack much by comparison with the softer R8s, the standout exception being the button to adjust the damping from Normal to Sport. Because the R8 Plus can’t adjust its suspension. It’s just hard. Yet it isn’t so hard that it can’t be driven regularly on pretty shoddy roads. If you’re prepared for a few vertical jolts, that is. And plenty of lateral head toss.

That’s because the R8 Plus seems to have no body roll to speak of whatsoever. Even at very high speed with very aggressive turn-in tactics, it seems like it wouldn’t worry a spirit level’s bubble at all.

The exhaust is slightly hotter sounding as well, but it’s only ECU tweaks that have generated the extra urge, so it loses none of the standard V10’s composure in urban and light-throttle situations. But where it excels is in full throttle situations. Crank up its launch control by selecting the Sport button for the throttle and gearbox, detach the electronic stability control safety net by holding in its button and pull first gear, step on the accelerator pedal and then sidestep the brake pedal and hang on...

... With both hands. Because the R8 Plus feels a full league faster than the V8 even if the numbers suggest it only plucks a tenth of a second out of the stock V10’s sprint to 100km/h. It bellows its deeper, rumbly power throughout the cabin, bursts forward with a chirp of its tyres and disappears.

It’s not hang-on-what-the-hell-just-happened fast like a Veyron, but it’s just far enough below that that you can appreciate everything that’s going on. It spits out stones from the tarmac like a bad boxer spitting teeth and dumps first gear like it hated it. There’s no snap into second, because the S Tronic doesn’t work like that. Instead, even under smashing acceleration, it feels like more of an aural flit than a physical one. Where Lamborghini sets up the Aventador’s ISR gearbox to smash you with a sudden jolt just to reinforce how hard-core it is, the R8 Plus shifts even faster with none of the drama.

The sound, too, helps to reinforce what it is you’re driving and so does its sheer speed. It’s a highly legitimate contender and can happily go toe-to-toe with much more expensive machinery, especially when some corners get tossed into the mix. That’s when the weight distribution, brakes and sheer grip come into play. And it has all of it in spades. The carbon-ceramic anchors are standard on the Plus and make the V8’s stoppers seem paltry, even if the smaller car’s brakes are extremely stubborn in their heat resistance.

Every time you go for the pedal, it’s right where you left it and responds exactly the same way, with the same stiff feel under the foot and the same power. Every time. It’s worth the money for that reassurance alone, because it means you can steer the car with your feet as much as your hands. If the corner tightens suddenly, you can brush the brake pedal and don’t have to worry about it resting a touch lower while it recovers from the last hard stop.

Everything about the way it corners feels even more nimble than the little V8, from the way it wants to throw your eyeballs into the side windows when you change direction to the way it punches its drive out the other side. It’s a seriously impressive thing and the first time you commit to a fast corner, you see there’s no real weak points in its package. Except it runs the same too-slow steering rack as the V8.

It’s because the rest of the car is so well sorted that the steering seems to stand out; that and because you have to keep taking extra bites – always in the same direction – through tight corners. At least in the Plus, you can fiddle with the accelerator pedal and brake pedal to help move the car in towards or away from the apex, so the steering is less of an issue with it than it is in the V8.

It’s a hard car to fault in any real way, even if the steering’s not Porsche-like. That’s not a damning criticism, because nobody else in the car world has found Zuffenhausen’s secret, either.

The V8 is much more than an entry level car, the Spyder is a terrific sports car that does double duty as a hard-core sports car and the Plus not only shows other R8 buyers that you’ve stepped it up in coin, but can go after the more established sports car brands, too. And if the Plus’s suspension is too hard, you only lose 0.1 seconds to 100km/h by going back to the stock V10 with the adaptive damping.

It wasn’t broken before, but it’s even better now.