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KresoF1
June 3rd, 2007, 18:48
The Sunday Times - 3 June 2007

Audi R8 by Jeremy Clarkson

We all know what businessmen's hotels are like. There's a priority check-in section where you wait behind some rope, on a bit of carpet. There are staff in shiny suits who say things like "If there's anything else at all for yourself at all". And you are given a credit card key that makes lots of whirring noises when you put it in the lock but will not, no matter what you do, open the door.

After you've kicked it down, you have the room. There's no obvious button to turn off the fan, which sounds like a Foxbat jet. The light switch by the bed turns all the lights off, except one. Which can only be extinguished by hitting the bulb with your shoe. The plug you need to charge your mobile is always behind the mini bar, and the 'tea and coffee making facilities' are designed to ensure you can't make either.

No, really: the kettle lead is never more than a foot long and the brown powder they put in the sachets is way closer on the periodic table to 'radium F' than it is to coffee.

Business hotels, I think, are the most miserable, soul destroying, soulless, energy sapping, embarrassing, badly run and badly organised edifices in the entire world. I'd rather stay in an igloo. And that's before we get to the food.
The menus are always written in a massively squiggly, curly-whirly typeface. And there's much talk of jus and things being drizzled onto other things. But you know the chef is not from Paris or Rome. He's from Darlington and he hasn't a clue what he's doing.

As a general rule, I order items that even I couldn't mess up, which is why, at a business hotel next to Manchester airport last week, I went for a lamb chump with mashed potato and cabbage.

I was expecting something irradiated, something the colour of a camel's dingleberry and with the texture of a cedar tree. But you know what? It was absolutely brilliant.

I thought it would be impossible to be so pleasantly surprised ever again. But then, as the next day dawned, I found I had to drive back to London in a new Range Rover... wait for it... diesel.

The Range Rover is a car so ideally suited to a V8 that putting a diesel in the mix completely spoils the point. It'd be like putting diesel on your supper instead of gravy. The worst thing about a diesel is the noise it makes when you start it up. A Range Rover is elegant, dignified, luxurious. And a diesel's rattle and clatter just don't go with the look at all.

Strangely, however, the Range Rover made almost no noise when I started it, and even less on the move. What's more, the fuel gauge stayed pretty much where it was on the entire three-hour schlep back to England. That was an even bigger surprise than the hotel's chump.

But it was nothing to the car that was waiting for me in London. The Audi R8.

I had seen pictures of this mid-engined supercar and they left me underwhelmed. I thought it looked a bit boring, like a slightly bigger version of the TT. And it wasn't going to be a real supercar, was it? Not when you remember Audi owns Lamborghini. I mean, why make a car to compete with your own brand? That'd be stupid.

This view is reinforced when you climb inside. There are very few supercar extravagances. There's no panic handle. No stitching made from yellowhammer feathers. No titanium machinegun triggers. It's very grey, very Audi, very normal. And that's fine, actually, because there are very few traditional supercar drawbacks either.

You can see out, there's room for your head, even if you have truly enormous hair, and there's space for briefcases and whatnot on a shelf behind the seats. It's big in there; much bigger than you'd believe.

Then you set off and there are no histrionics. The exhaust makes a deep, meaningful rumble, but as is the way in Jaguar's XK you can't really hear it when you're inside.

So it's spookily quiet, and that's just the start of it. Because it is also spectacularly comfortable. I don't mean comfortable... for a sports car. I mean it's so comfortable you can run over anything up to a medium-sized fox and not even notice. Couple this to the usual array of Audi in-car entertainment - sat nav, a hi-fi from Bang & Olufsen no less - and you have a car that, like the Porsche 911, you really could live with every day.

You needn't even worry about the engine. It's not a W16 with eight turbos and plugs that foul themselves at every set of lights. It doesn't run on fertiliser and grated tiger chippings. Instead, it's the 414bhp 4.2 V8 from the RS 4. I've described this as one of the best engines made today and a drive in the R8 has not changed my mind. It does everything, brilliantly.

Of course, you cannot really expect a quiet, comfortable car with the engine from a saloon to perform well on a track. The suspension would be too soft. The power not quite grunty enough. The track is Lambo land. The Audi belongs in a city, soothing the fevered brow of the man with the midlife crisis, while massaging his ego, all at the same time. Wrong. Very, very wrong. In fact the Audi is outstanding when there's nothing coming the other way. It's not blisteringly fast. From rest to 120, it goes at almost exactly the same rate as the Porsche 911 Carrera S. And flat out it'll be out of steam before it gets to 190. But to dismiss it for this is to miss the point.

The four-wheel-drive system affords a huge level of grip, but because it's been tuned so no more than 30% of the power is ever sent to the front wheels you don't get the dreary understeer that's plagued all quattro cars in the past.

You turn in, feel the grip, add power, the rear starts to slide, you apply some opposite lock, balance the throttle and then... and then... you start to realise you are driving one of the all-time greats. It's not a hefty car. You don't manhandle it through the bends. It flows, delicately and precisely.

I don't think I've ever driven a car that works so well on both the road and the track. Even if you remove my natural prejudice against the Porsche 911, I believe the Audi has it licked on all counts. Except perhaps one...

The Audi is listed at just under £77,000 and that looks good, but if you want any equipment at all, that shoots up fast. The car I drove, which had a manual gearbox rather than flappy paddles, and normal brakes rather than ceramic discs, still cost a whopping £92,000. Even the leather interior was an optional extra.

But look at it this way. The R8 shares some parts and infrastructure with the Lamborghini Gallardo. And that's £125,000. Anyone who's just bought a baby Lambo - me - must be feeling as sick as a dog right now. Because in so many ways the R8 is better. Yes, the Lambo is more exciting, louder and harder. But on the other 363 days of the year, when you just want a nice car...

The only problem is that Audi cannot build the R8 fast enough. There are difficulties with making the carbon fibre panels, and as a result it can manage just 20 a day. That's nowhere near enough to satisfy demand, especially when a more powerful V10 comes on stream next year.

In the meantime I can safely say the R8 is one of the best surprises of my motoring life. It is one of the truly great cars and the only hesitation I have in giving it five stars is that, ideally, I'd like to give it six...

Vital statistics

Model: Audi R8
Engine: 4163cc, eight cylinders
Power: 414bhp @ 7800rpm
Torque: 317 lb ft @ 4500rpm
Transmission: Six-speed manual
Fuel: 19.3mpg (combined cycle)
CO2: 349g/km
Acceleration: 0-62mph: 4.6sec
Top speed: 187mph
Price: £76,825
Rating: ***** (5 stars)
Verdict: "Better than my Lambo..."

Ruergard
June 3rd, 2007, 19:29
Thanks for sharing!

A damn good verdict and report.. again, Audi has done something magical! :love:

+44 Dave
June 3rd, 2007, 20:23
To please Clarkson it is very difficult so to see that he wishes to give the R8 6 stars is unbelivable. I cant wait to see the video review they'll do on topgear next series.
This car means business!

Leadfoot
June 3rd, 2007, 22:43
What this results and the many others that have been reported about car prove is that supercars don't have to be impractical and a bit true quality and sensible design prove to be the more popular.

In a way what Audi has achieve is to take the usability of a Porsche 911 and put it to a design that seems to appeal to all.

Bravo Audi.

AndyBG
June 4th, 2007, 01:08
Clarkson, talking good about Audi, what is next... :confused:

Great to hear and read this !

dsts6
June 4th, 2007, 01:14
he did like the RS4 a lot....

Boosted-Bora
June 7th, 2007, 07:37
if i remember properly he liked the rs6 as well

Ruergard
June 7th, 2007, 12:05
if i remember properly he liked the rs6 as well

Yes, he choosed it over the E55 AMG and the E39 M5. :addict:

KiwiRS4
June 9th, 2007, 11:47
Just reinforces why I ordered one. Roll on first week of December. :)