One look at the Audi R8 and it's obvious that it's a great car. There's just something so right about its proportions and exterior details that even before a door is opened or the engine started, it's obvious that the midengine, all-wheel-drive Audi R8 balances thrills with on-road confidence in a way few cars have ever managed.
But maybe it shouldn't be surprising that Audi has built a singularly great performance machine like the R8. After all, back in the 1930s this is the company that practically invented the midengine high-performance sports car. And the Audi R8 may just indicate that the company is getting its groove back.
The Audi R8's roots go all the way back to 1932 when four struggling German carmakers — Audi, Horch, DKW and Wanderer — merged to form Auto Union. Needing a showpiece project, Auto Union, with financing from Hitler's Third Reich, established a Grand Prix racing program with the legendary Ferdinand Porsche leading the engineering effort. The result was a series of midengine racers built around massive supercharged V16 and V12 engines.
Between 1934 and 1939 the midengine Auto Union racers ran alongside similarly painted cars from Mercedes-Benz. Together the two teams were Germany's "Silver Arrows" and they dominated Grand Prix racing up to the moment when World War II began. With racing heritage like that, the Audi R8 had to be good.
Audi is the successor company to Auto Union and the four interlocking rings those ancient racers wore are on the nose and tail of the Audi R8. The R8 name itself is from racing, too, coming straight off Audi's incredibly successful Le Mans endurance racer of the early 2000s. Upon its introduction for the 2008 model year, the street-going version of the R8 featured a midmounted, longitudinally positioned 4.2-liter V8. The two available gearboxes, like many of the Audi R8's mechanical pieces, were actually designed and built by Audi's wholly owned subsidiary Lamborghini.
By 2010 Lamborghini's V10 engine was available in the Audi R8 and an open Spyder model was added to the lineup. A turbocharged diesel Audi R8 was developed, but ultimately scuttled by Audi before production.
