Why God Created Envy: Audi Does the Impossible -- Improve On Near-Perfection
December 08, 2009
/ By Arthur St. Antoine
/ Photography by Brian Vance
2009 Audi R8 5 2 FSI Quattro Front Three Quarters Driver
Click to view Gallery
How much is half a second and 105 horsepower worth to you? You'll want to ponder that question if you're in the enviable position of having to decide between the V-8-propelled version of Audi's R8 two-seat, mid-engine exotic or the newly introduced V-10 edition. When the cars are similarly configured, the ten's two additional cylinders command a premium of nearly $10K apiece...
... If the R8 5.2 has any shortcomings -- and we're reaching here -- it's in its gearbox. The standard six-speed manual works well, with a fluid clutch that's never balky and a gated aluminum shifter that bangs up and down through the cogs with a retro-pleasant "clank." Yet you can't help feeling the R8 could do better. For instance, test driver Scott Mortara was thwarted during his acceleration runs by a crunchy one-two upshift (our test car wore a lot of hard miles). Hey, bring on the paddle-shift auto-clutch manual, you say. Ah, but the R8's optional R-Tronic unit is a single-clutch design -- it works satisfactorily, but has none of the shifting finesse or speed of the top dual-clutch paddle-shift units, such as Ferrari's seven-speed F1 or Porsche's PDK. "Dual-clutch trannies are the present and the future," says Kiino. "The R8 needs to get with the times." Indeed. Meantime, the manual box is definitely the best way to shift Audi's star car...
Read more: http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/...#ixzz0Z7cczQFa
December 08, 2009
/ By Arthur St. Antoine
/ Photography by Brian Vance
2009 Audi R8 5 2 FSI Quattro Front Three Quarters Driver
Click to view Gallery
How much is half a second and 105 horsepower worth to you? You'll want to ponder that question if you're in the enviable position of having to decide between the V-8-propelled version of Audi's R8 two-seat, mid-engine exotic or the newly introduced V-10 edition. When the cars are similarly configured, the ten's two additional cylinders command a premium of nearly $10K apiece...
... If the R8 5.2 has any shortcomings -- and we're reaching here -- it's in its gearbox. The standard six-speed manual works well, with a fluid clutch that's never balky and a gated aluminum shifter that bangs up and down through the cogs with a retro-pleasant "clank." Yet you can't help feeling the R8 could do better. For instance, test driver Scott Mortara was thwarted during his acceleration runs by a crunchy one-two upshift (our test car wore a lot of hard miles). Hey, bring on the paddle-shift auto-clutch manual, you say. Ah, but the R8's optional R-Tronic unit is a single-clutch design -- it works satisfactorily, but has none of the shifting finesse or speed of the top dual-clutch paddle-shift units, such as Ferrari's seven-speed F1 or Porsche's PDK. "Dual-clutch trannies are the present and the future," says Kiino. "The R8 needs to get with the times." Indeed. Meantime, the manual box is definitely the best way to shift Audi's star car...
Read more: http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/...#ixzz0Z7cczQFa
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