A POWERFUL RIDE IN ELEGANT STYLE
Audi’s gorgeous R8 Spyder makes driving obscenely fast easy, supremely comfortable
Carrying on a conversation in a convertible travelling at 130 km/h — with the top down — should not be this easy. And with a 540-horsepower V10 breathing heavily behind my seat, it should be nigh impossible to hear anything without shouting.
Yet we are not shouting. We are talking calmly, gently, soaking up the sunshine along the coastline of Spain in a 2017 Audi R8 Spyder, the topless version of the R8 coupe. Its fabric roof, now insulated for sound and cold, folds away at the touch of a button in 20 seconds and at speeds up to 50 km/h, slipping away under a sculpted and vented rear deck like a suit jacket in a suitcase of carbon fibre-reinforced polymer.
A small plastic windscreen about the size of a snowboard behind the seats does a decent job of defeating the wind that wants in on our chatter, though it seems flimsy in comparison to all the aluminum, glossy carbon fibre, rich nappa leather and neatly tailored trim that is the otherwise exquisite R8 interior. The interior is replete with Audi’s Virtual Cockpit, a 12.3inch digital instrument screen, the speedometer, tachometer and route guidance are clear, colourful and pleasing to the eyes, which aren’t taxed by looking away from the road.
With the top up, the glass rear window can still be powered down to better hear the symphony that is the 5.2-litre, directand port-injected V10 peaking at 398 pound-feet of torque at 6,500 r.p.m. At its redline of 8,700 r.p.m., the mid-mounted engine sings with a holy terror of smoothness that will require expensive counselling to forget. In isolation, 398 lb-ft does sound like a huge torque figure for an all-wheel-drive supercar, the Spyder’s quiet and confident quattro all-wheel-drive system updated to an electro-hydraulically actuated multi-plate clutch, able to transfer up to 100 per cent of the torque to either the front or rear axle, depending on need. But it makes driving obscenely fast extremely easy and more comfortable than it ought to be.
The power neither overwhelms nor underwhelms. Simply, the drive is pure excitement. The electromagnetic steering is always on point, feeding the driver with respectable levels of feedback and a surety that speed is not something to fear. The seven-speed S-tronic dual-clutch gearbox is the perfect concierge, always at the ready with the next gear, actuated instantly by paddle shifters and never delivering a hard kick between shifts. The brakes are brilliant.
Better, in the adjustable drive mode of Dynamic, with the optional sport exhaust ports open and optional sport steering wheel adding a deeper level of drive settings, the warfare that erupts from those black rectangular pipes housed in a tidy rear diffuser is enough to frighten the unwitting.
Thrust, of course, is immediate: 100 km/h is gone in 3.6 seconds. In another 8.2 seconds, the R8 exceeds 200 km/h. Even at this speed, despite the F4 hurricane of wind howling past, the cabin remains comfortably civil, not the cacophony of turbulence expected of a convertible at speed.
The car’s top speed is 318. We don’t go there. But we do push the R8 as hard as possible through the spaghetti strings of roads that line the coast of Spain, and not once does the convertible shake, shudder or feel top heavy, normally the bane of any car that stows its roof below deck.
It delivers an extremely comfortable ride when the driver is not behaving badly. The standard sport seats are perfect. Even though the R8’s aluminum and carbon subframe is now much like the R8 LMS race car, weighing just 208 kilograms, it rides more like a GT car in Normal mode and could almost pass for an RS7 if you didn’t know the difference.
So what could possibly be the downside to choosing the Spyder over the coupe? The side blades are more elegant in the Spyder. The engine cover looks sharp. LED headlights are standard. There is no weight penalty. The freedom that comes from driving a convertible is undeniable, and with the new insulated roof, noise and cold won’t be an issue. The 43-kilogram roof can support more than a metre of snow.
If there is a downside, the seats could use a tad more travel, especially on the passenger side, as cabin space is reduced for the mechanicals of the roof. And four cubic feet of cargo space might be problematic for anything more than an overnight bag or two.
The Spyder looks long, low and mean and it adds a greater degree of beauty, elegance and sophistication to the already gorgeous R8 coupe, and does so without any of the traditional compromises of a convertible. Now that’s something to talk about.