As many of you may already know, I am in Cape Town and will soon be starting an internship at CAR Magazine. And to be perfectly honest, I am sick of coughing up butterflies because my stomach can no longer contain them. So, just to help ease or add to the tension - depends on which angle you look at it from, I was taken for a spin in a vehicle I have idolised for quite some time...the Audi R8. But not just any old R8, the new R8 V10 Spyder.
And who took me for this spin, Hannes Oosthuizen, the Sub-Editor of CAR Magazine himself.
Mmm, don’t worry, I envy myself just thinking back.
As for the car, ah, well, it’s as good, if not even better, than what you think it is.
Understand my problem is that I haven’t really had the chance to drive many ‘serious’ cars, so bear with me.
The interior is typically Audi, and whereas in most cars you have scratch around to find bits of leather, in the R8, it’s the other way around...you have to hunt to find bits of plastic. The seats are great, supportive, but at the same time very comfortable.
The centre console houses a navigation system (standard with a Bang & Olufsen sound system), climate control, controls for the seat heaters and so on. The gearbox was Audi’s 6 speed R tronic automatic, which, at a quick glance, adds almost R45 000 to the price tag. I’m sorry, but I really don’t think it’s worth it. Plus, this is a driver’s car, and deserves a proper manual.
Just behind the gear stick you find a couple of buttons, and honestly there wasn’t enough time to note what they all did, but there were two that did take my fancy. One is for the suspension, and if pushed firms up the suspension for even more composure in the corners. The other...is the ‘Sport’ button, and I don’t think I really need to tell you what that does.
On the road the R8 is a breathe taking piece of art. As we drove past, construction workers slipped off their spades, pedestrians wondered into oncoming traffic to have a closer look and traffic cops had their radar guns at the ready.
But every now and then, Hannes would do me the favour and plant his foot, at which point in time the world would become but a blur.
The R8 has Audi legendary Quattro system, which means grip like I have never felt before. To give you a rough idea, we were taking corners that had a speed limit of 30 km/h at speeds well over double that - I’d love to tell you the exact figure, but during such cornering, I was discovering what the view out of my left ear looked like as my eye-balls were slowly pushed along my ear-canal. And the best part, this wasn’t even near the Spyder’s limits, there was no over-steer, no under-steer, hell, there wasn’t even a bit of tyre squeal.
The brakes are brilliant. On numerous occasions I thought I might make my entrance through the pearly gates with the stupid ‘GP’ Jeep Cherokee that wouldn’t get out of the way plastered to my forehead. But alas, no matter how fast we where traveling when he decided to pull out in front of us, the R8 would come to a dead halt if asked to.
The engine is the same 5.2 liter V10 that is found in the Lamborghini Gallardo and produces 386 kW and 530 Nm. It does 0 - 100 in 4.1 seconds and has a top speed of 313 km/h.
After my spin, I felt so on top of the world, I felt like telling Julius Malema he was a complete idiot and Dolly Parton that her boobs were too big.
This is one of those cars that can make you better than a million bucks, with a starting price of ‘only’ R2.1 million. Start saving kids, because as we speak, I’m blowing the dust off my piggy bank.
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