After 18 years, R8 is finished: Audi’s super sports car roared

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R8 is dead, long live R8! Audi’s sporty flagship has reached the end of its life; In fact, this was planned beforehand. The final R8 is expected to roll off the assembly line by the end of 2023. However, after the announcement that the super sports car would be discontinued, the Ingolstadt-based company received another large wave of additional orders. Now, a few months after its planned ending, it has officially ended. The same fate befell the Audi TT, which was retired in 2023 after a quarter of a century.

In addition to these recent objections, the R8 is no longer a bestseller in recent years. The trend had already been declining for several years: in 2022 sales figures were just over 1,000 units worldwide, and twice as many were sold in 2019. The R8 had its heyday in its first generation, two years after its launch in 2008, when more than 5,000 models were sold worldwide. The Audi Sport factory in Neckarsulm (D) never achieved these figures again.

Short but intense lifespan

Audi’s top model was launched in 2006 with a 420 hp (309 kW) V8, and three years later the larger V10 engine with 525 hp (386 kW) appeared. The iconic super sports car still stands out today and in the first generation was characterized by its modern and extremely rounded body design, an appearance strongly reminiscent of the Audi TT.

Its successor was much squarer in comparison, but Audi made little change to the front end and prominent side air intakes, retaining the DNA of its predecessor. The second generation was offered only with the V10, increasing power output to 540 hp (397 kW). In 2019, the facelifted version of the R8 was released, and with it the final version: The top version reached the highest performance of the series with 620 hp (456 kW).

Audi’s future is electric

It has long been clear that a car with a combustion engine like the R8 no longer has a future at Audi: From 2026, only fully electric models will be developed in Ingolstadt; Audi currently offers many models in its portfolio as electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids.

If the R8 gets a successor, at least in spirit, it will roar around corners fully electric. Audi made a similar attempt in 2015 with the R8 E-Tron, which was limited to 100 units. For a new electric super sports car, engineers can now rely on a much more modern electrical architecture: the PPE platform developed together with Porsche, on which, for example, the new Audi Q6 and Porsche Macan are based. In their top versions these produce more than 500 hp.

Source: Blick