An Upgrade to the R8
We recently reported that the current Audi R8 would be the last R8 generation. However, that doesn’t mean Audi has plans of letting the car languish as this generation of the car moves forward. A report from PistonHeads indicated that Audi Performance boss Oliver Hoffman wants to build a higher-performance version of the model based on the GT3 racing car. This model would borrow heavily from that car but it would be a street car.
Hoffman said that in order to meet some of the high-performance offerings from other manufacturers, like Porsche, the company should add another version of the R8 to its lineup. He said people love the GT3 R8 but they want to be able to drive that car on the street. It sounds like it could be pretty easy to make it happen, too, according to Hoffman.
The racing car engine is almost identical to the road car’s, so that’s already proven, but we have the GT3 drivers doing chassis testing for us. For example, Frank Stippler, he’s driving our GT3 car and is also our development guy doing the Nurburgring testing for road cars.
All this is good news. It’s nice to see Audi continuing to work on and come up with new ideas for the R8 even as it draws ever closer to eventual discontinuation. We have a feeling there are still great things to expect from the V10 supercar.
