2011 Audi R8 Spyder 5.2 FSI V10 First Drive by Inside Line

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03-11-2010, 08:49 AM

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2011 Audi R8 Spyder 5.2 FSI V10 First Drive by Inside Line

2010 Audi R8 Spyder 5.2 V10

"All the versions of the Audi R8 up until now have become accepted as cherished members of the global fleet of sports cars, and that's wonderful. But last year the R8 5.2 FSI V10 finally took the R8 brand officially into supercar territory. And with the 2011 Audi R8 Spyder 5.2 FSI V10, the recipe is all there at last. This particular version of the R8 is the car the engineers at Quattro GmbH in Neckarsulm (Audi's high-performance division) always wanted to build in the first place.

As we flew effortlessly across the coastal roads of southern France on a day in late winter, the wind was howling in all directions and the feeling was raw, dramatic. Yet it just goosed us into the right frame of mind for exactly this type of supercar. Unlike the Audi R8 V10 coupe, the 2011 Audi R8 Spyder 5.2 FSI V10 lets us hear its excellent voice more often and there's just plain more of it. Every tunnel — hell, a 25-yard-wide underpass — is an opportunity to slide the car out of gear and just whop the throttle pedal to get as close to the maximum 8,700 rpm as permitted.

The 2011 Audi R8 V10 Spyder's competition is pretty fierce. There's the Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 Spyder (the R8 Spyder's sister car), and then the Bentley Continental GTC, Ferrari California, the latest Porsche 911 Turbo Cabriolet, and possibly a future Aston Martin V12 Vantage Roadster. (Anyone for an open-top Corvette ZR1?) But the Audi takes the measure of them all.

We never shut the top, not even when the Mediterranean typhoon was blowing the salty spray from the waves right over the car as we gunned our way along the coast. And it's this kind of raw, natural vigor that sets apart the 2011 Audi R8 Spyder 5.2 FSI V10.

The Most R8 of the R8s
More than once, we've been cruising highways in Germany and California and seen a couple of low-lying Audis driving alongside one another in the distance. Oddly enough, one of the cars proved to be an R8 4.2 V8 coupe and the other a new TT in each case. We couldn't tell the two cars apart until we got relatively close, since they share a multitude of design cues.

This design dilemma is now history thanks to the sense of occasion that the topless 2011 Audi R8 5.2 FSI V10 brings to the R8 family. Gotta say that the swell of the Spyder's rear fenders makes for a great profile as well. All of the new panels that go into action when the Spyder retracts its roof in a 20-second display are molded from lightweight carbon-fiber, just like the pieces on the Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder. We measured those two silver-colored buttresses behind the headrests and they're just shy of a yard long. (The rear wing is 46 inches long, in case you're wondering.)
The V10-powered R8 has unique side vents to cool the engine and gearbox, and their design falls somewhere between the R8 coupe's showy side blades and the automated scoops of the Audi E-tron show car. These simple slits, some 3 inches wide and 14 inches long, also help de-kitsch the profile of the R8 design, which is starting to look a little forced to us when we're feeling a bit grumpy."

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2011 Audi R8 Spyder 5.2 FSI V10 First Drive