The R8 is here! It’s not as if we weren’t given plenty of warning about its impending arrival, though – Audi has been threatening to build a top-flight supercar for years.
Remember the stunning Avus concept? A mid-engined, four-wheel-drive, aluminium-bodied two-seater, it pointed the way for a high-performance model when it was unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show back in 1991.
That’s 16 years ago – eons in automotive terms – yet since then Audi has pulled the wraps off two more prototypes that shared the same basic architecture: the Rosemeyer (2000) and RSQ (2004). It’s even been four years since the Le Mans Quattro Concept, the R8’s direct predecessor, was first seen at the Geneva expo.
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