You can usually tell how happy a manufacturer is with a car’s performance in the marketplace come facelift time. If it feels the need to start throwing new bodywork and engines at it rather than waiting a few years for its all-new replacement, you can usually assume the car’s not doing its job properly.
So armed with this knowledge, let’s look at all the changes that the Audi R8 is deemed to require, six years after Audi first put it on sale. Outside there are merely new lights, restyled exhaust pipes, a new valence at the back and a restyled grille at the front. Inside there are a few more aluminium trim panels and promotion from optional to standard for things such as sat-nav, Bluetooth and iPod connectivity. There’s confidence for you.
But there’s a little more here than immediately meets the eye, most important of which is in the form of a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission to replace the robotised six-speed manual gearbox found in previous manual versions of the Audi R8. Smooth, quick and without any of the old transmission’s habit of stumbling over itself, it is now as good a reason to skip the standard manual as the old auto was to choose it.
Don’t pay too much attention to Audi’s claims that it drops the 0-62mph time by 0.3sec of both the Audi R8 4.2-litre V8 and Audi R8 5.2-litre V10 versions because that’s only going to happen if you use its new launch control facility every time you leave the lights. Focus instead on the fact that the one weak link in the R8’s chain of command has now been replaced. It costs an extra £2900, which only sounds steep until you consider it’s less than Audi charges to trim the engine bay in carbonfibre.
